Resting on Your Laurels
by scriptmanip
Summary: Slightly AU: Ten years after Bristol and Roundview, Naomi and Emily collide in Londontown.
1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:** I'm pretty sure I said was done with AU after finishing Clean Sheet, so I'm not really sure where the fuck this came from. All I know is that I've had it taking up space in my head for awhile now, and it's time to get it written. So there you have it. I've been a real Naomily binge lately so I'm hoping to keep updates frequent. Best laid plans and all. Hope to get some of you on board with this as I'm quite excited about finally writing it.

* * *

The queue is nearly out the door of the shop, but you've been cramped in a stuffy train car for over two hours so you can't say you really mind the wait. A chance to stretch your legs. Someone's pushed open the door just as you approach, and the aroma of freshly ground coffee hits your lungs like a breath of fresh air. The patrons shuffle forward as you scroll through your inbox, sending off emails with quick swipes of your thumb, until you're finally stood in front of a less-than-eager barista.

"Small, black. Two sugars, please." Yours is a practiced smile, the small, tight one, reserved for exchanges such as this. Hardly cold, but not altogether sincere.

"First and last name?" The girl has a black marker poised over your paper cup.

Clearing your throat, you look back to your mobile which has just vibrated in your hand. "Oh, you can just put Naomi. Thanks."

Upon returning eye contact, you sense a struggle waging across the girl's face as she decides whether or not to press the matter of your surname.

"And the last name – sorry, but it's just according to the training protocol, I've got to ask for first _and_ last."

Fucking corporate capitalism. _The bloody ruin of good customer service_, you think. There are moments, even more so as you age, where your internal monologue sounds more like your mum's than your own.

"It's unlikely there'll be another Naomi awaiting this very order, don't you think?"

"Well –"

"It's Campbell, isn't it?"

The features are all wrong. Eyes that have warmed [if that's even possible] and weathered a bit over time. Hair that's darker and longer and straighter than you've ever seen it. But the voice, you'd recognise anywhere. Which is what stops every word you attempt to form from sounding like anything other than strangled air.

She looks amused by your sudden inability to speak, and it's not until after a full three seconds of just _looking_ at her that you finally manage to remember the barista, her insistence on _protocol_, and her fucking black marker.

"That's right," you say, turning back to the counter wearing a grin that feels all too familiar. "It's Campbell. Naomi Campbell."

The girl pauses for just another beat before scribbling onto the side of the cup and mumbling something about, "No need to be a smartarse or anything." And you'd probably be more inclined to ask her just how that attitude towards a paying customer fits into her precious training module if you weren't also completely out-of-sorts at the moment. If you weren't also standing beside a girl who once changed the course of your entire life.

When you move towards the end of the counter to wait for your coffee she follows so that when you turn to lean your hip against the granite surface, she's stood right in front of you. _Petite as fucking ever_, you think. You cross your arms, eye her curiously while biting at your top lip to keep from smiling too obviously, and finally say, "Emily Fitch."

"This is," she starts, just shaking her head a bit and holding your eyes like she's trying to reconcile the past ten years with a single look.

"Unexpected?" You offer, releasing her gaze for only a second to receive your coffee as it's slid towards you.

"Well that's the fucking understatement of the century," she laughs. Your hand grips tighter to the coffee cup without warning. And then, "What are you up to? Do you have a minute?"

You don't actually. There's the hotel check-in, meetings to book, clients to see. You can't possibly sit still for any amount of time with _anyone_ really. Let alone commit to even a few spare minutes with the likes of Emily Fitch. So when you hear yourself answering, "Of course," you're honestly a bit surprised.

The shop is terribly crowded, but Emily must've seen you when you entered because, by the looks of the table to which she leads you, she's been here for a while.

"What's all this?" You ask when Emily starts shuffling around papers and stacks of books to clear a spot for you.

"Oh, it's nothing," she says, and for a split second you forget that, at this point, you're no longer at will to pry.

So you nod, scan the titles of a few books before she's managed to stash them away on the chair beside her, and sit down across from a hauntingly familiar set of brown eyes.

It should be more awkward, you think, since it's not as if you've kept in touch at all in at least a decade. And yet, the thing most prominent, as your head tries to settle on one, singular emotion, is excitement. You feel a bit giddy to have stumbled upon this chance encounter, and so where you've now gnawed too forcefully at your upper lip is sore and throbbing.

"So, you're local, I take it?"

"Deduction always was a strong suit of yours," she answers, sips from her water bottle and licks her lips.

Watching her, you think, _Christ, that was an unexpected sensation_. Clearing your throat, you look downward, run a finger along the plastic lid of your cup.

"How long?"

Emily exhales and leans back into her chair, looks toward the window. "Eight years?" she says looking back to you as if you'd be able to verify her math.

"So after university," you start cautiously, still trying to decide just how far back into history you're willing to go.

"Right. God, it's been fucking ages, hasn't it?" She shakes her head and smiles, though it's said so lightly, so easily, you're fairly certain she's not trying to launch into something massive of which you're not prepared to engage.

"It has," you nod and hold the warm, paper cup with both hands.

"So, right, after uni I bounced around a bit – spent time in Prague and Berlin. Katie and I did a tour of Thailand – did some human rights work in Burma."

You can't help but raise your brow at that, but Emily just smiles and nods.

"Oh yes, you wouldn't recognise Katie these days – she's a far cry from the girl who once hit you upside the head."

"I hardly recognised you!" You laugh, which isn't really true. Because the shape of her eyes, the tilt of her mouth – these are things you've realised are not easily forgotten.

"I could say the same," she says, sweeping her eyes over your face and hair and clothes. "Though, your penchant for being difficult clearly hasn't changed."

You consider a retort, but it dies on your tongue when Emily shoots you a look that has always, _always_ been able to shut you up on the spot. So instead you say, "Right, I know. The hair – it was quite a signature for a while." Running your fingers through it you then say, "Though, I'm sure you get that as well."

"I still can't believe I wore it that way – god, that _colour_. When I see old photos," she's saying, shaking her head and making a face of mild disgust.

"It looked good." You've said it with a shrug, but it doesn't come off sounding as casual as it should, as you've _hoped_, and you think Emily's noticed since she's found a spot on the table to chip at with her thumbnail. So you follow up quickly with, "Anyway, we pretty much got away with anything back then, didn't we? Fashion be damned?"

You're both laughing again when your mobile buzzes, rattling its way across the table before you snatch it up.

"Do you need to take that?" she asks.

"No – I mean, yes." You fidget to silence it before admitting, "Actually, I've got to get going. I've got a rather full day."

"Oh, you should have said – I'm just sitting here procrastinating essays and here you have an actual life to get back to."

"Well, yeah, sort of, but –"

"Are you in town for long? Or, for good? Sorry I didn't even get to ask what you're doing these days."

You stop yourself from saying, 'Nor did I' since it sounds like the beginning of a much longer conversation, and instead settle with, "I'm in town for a bit – nothing permanent." It rolls out of your mouth so easily, from having said those same eight words so many times before. It could be your fucking mantra, you think.

The call you've now ignored goes to voicemail, and you glance nervously at the time before slipping it back into your pocket. When you look back to Emily she's fishing out her own mobile and hands it over with a smile.

"Your number," she says with an eye roll when you hesitate taking it from her. "Don't think I'm going to run into you after all this time and be satisfied with one, sodding, fifteen minute conversation."

"You always were a bit chatty," you smile, typing your information into Emily's phone.

"Those who live in glass houses, Naomi," Emily chides.

Your stomach flips involuntarily when she says your name, her head tilted just so once you've looked up at her, and you can't for your fucking _life_ figure out how there's still a sixteen-year-old girl living somewhere inside your body after so much time.

"There you have it," you say, clearing your throat and sliding the phone back across the table.

"Great, so I'll just shoot you a text or something – let you know my schedule?"

"Yeah, that'd be – that'd be great," you manage.

"_Great_."

She's taking the piss, apparent by the smirk she gives you when you slide the chair back and stand. "Well, aren't we the great conversationalists of our generation, Emily Fitch?"

You're a breath away from forming a concise farewell when something ghosts across her face and she rushes out, "I'll walk out with you actually."

"Oh."

"Think I had enough caffeine today to power a small automobile."

She's already gathering her books and hurrying to clear the table while you're just stood beside it, still not having managed a proper response. So when she's slung a large canvas bag over her shoulder, which dwarfs her completely, she just looks over to you and says, "Come on then, you're the one in a hurry, yeah?"

"Right," you say and follow her out of the coffee shop.

* * *

Things are bustling in front of the hotel – all valets and luggage and trolleys. So you're both stood off to the side, under the shade of a grand awning, and Emily shifts from one foot to the other, readjusting the weight of her bag.

"Lush living," Emily says and squints up at the building towering behind you, the early afternoon sun glinting off its glass.

"Is it? I haven't yet checked in, actually."

"Oh? When you said you were in town, I just assumed –"

"I've just arrived. Stopped in for a coffee straight off the train."

"Well, how fortunate then." When she looks back at you, a bit of your coffee revolts at the back of your throat.

"What's that?"

"Of all the coffee joints, in all of South London, you walked into mine."

You're not sure, but you hope to god that either the shade of the awning or the bright streams of light from the sun are masquerading the blush on your neck and cheeks because the _heat_ of it is fucking unbearable.

"I see your charm hasn't waned with age," you finally manage, pressing your lips firmly together as you look down to your shoes.

Emily is still watching you when you look back up – just wearing this easy sort of expression as if she hasn't _flirted_ with you in front of a busy hotel in the middle of the day after more than a decade apart. It's lucky then, that your mobile chooses this moment to start vibrating again, tickling your leg through the thin material of your pocket lining. It startles you out of something, and Emily too apparently, because as you reach for it she's already apologising and backing away.

"Sorry – you're busy and I'm holding you up like a selfish twat."

You glance at the screen then back at her. "I'm sorry, I really do have to take this, but we'll talk soon, yeah?"

"Yes, definitely," she says.

And just as you're putting the phone to your ear, you return her small, awkward wave and start for the large, glass doors of the building.


	2. Chapter 2

**Author's Note:** You all and your reviews are so ridiculous I don't even have any words. Very very glad to see the set-up is a hit so far. This second chap is a bit shorter than I wanted, but I'm setting up for the next chapter which I think will be quite a bit bigger (suspense!).

Naomilyfan, as a guest reviewer, I can never properly respond to tell you how much your enthusiasm makes me smile. Good on you. So glad you are on board with this new story!

Alright, enough with the chatter, let's get on with it.

* * *

The week is quick and exhaustive, as most first weeks in a new place tend to be. Long days full of meetings and consultations followed by nights of dinners, drinks, and the company of strangers. You don't complain – your life is far from mundane or repetitive, but the schedule, it takes its toll. So by Saturday, when you've finally some time to reacquaint yourself with lovely Londontown, you'd much prefer to lounge about the hotel and catch up on sleep. Instead you find yourself milling through vendors at an open market.

Emily had waited all of 72 hours before sending a text to see about making dinner plans. And you managed to shirk her for two nights solid – your head still trying to wrap itself around seeing her for all of twenty minutes, let alone the notion of _dining_ with her– but when excuses had failed you this morning, you'd said something trite like: _Dinner would be lovely_. And have thus spent the rest of the morning trying to think of ways to compensate for your shit reply. Because you _are_ interested in hearing about who she is, where she's been, and what's happened along all those years in-between. You desperately want to know, even if, truthfully, it's more likely a draw between _actual_ interest and morbid curiosity.

You're in front of a vendor perusing flower arrangements because you think presenting a bouquet to your dinner host is a perfectly traditional form of gratitude. Because you think it might be nice to do something so very adult – a proper dinner on a Saturday evening where you present a freshly plucked arrangement of flowers – with someone who once pulled back your hair as you vomited from too much tequila. _Because_, you think, _Emily has always loved flowers_.

"We've got to stop meeting like this."

It's her. Of course it's her. Because if anyone could [_twice_ in one week] seek you out in a city that houses more than eight million people, it would _of course_ be Emily Fitch.

"You're not stalking me, are you?" you ask with a smile, your fingers still trailing over the blossoms to your left.

"Not for ages," she says and squints one eye closed when she looks up at you, making this funny little smile because the sun is directly in her face. "So, flowers, ey?"

"Uh, yes. I thought, well, dinner tonight and all." She nods along and you finally recover a bit from thinking about Emily stalking you and where that got you the _last_ time, enough to say, "Though you've completely ruined the element of surprise by popping up here now."

"I promise to act with nothing but shock and awe," she says, placing one hand over her chest. And then, "Besides, Rosalind will adore you for them. She loves daisies."

You hand pauses along a flower petal. "Sorry, Rosalind?"

"Oh, yes. Sorry, I'm such a tit – Rose is my girlfriend. Or, partner, I guess. Girlfriend doesn't sound quite right, but, yes, she's my –"

During her rant Emily's looked over to the table of flowers and is gesturing with her hands. She's not looking at your face and how it's probably contorted itself in such a way, you can't be sure you don't look completely horrified.

A light breeze slips between you, whisking away your sudden stupor, and you help her locate the word she's searching for. "Person."

"What?" she says. And when she looks back at you just then, you're fairly certain you've managed a smile.

"Rose. She's your person."

Emily breathes out, returns your smile. "Yes, exactly. She's my person."

You don't remember ever needing a drink so bad in your entire, fucking life, and that's accounting for the multiple times you've walked in on your mother and her random, transient lovers. And yet, this somehow feels more damaging. You're still attempting to swallow, breathe, remain standing, and just generally recover from hearing Emily say the word _partner_ when something over your shoulder catches her eye.

"Oh my _god_, they came back!" She's grabbed hold of your wrist before you've even turned your head to see what she's on about, and suddenly you're stumbling after her, clumsily weaving through the crowds of people.

When you stop, she's pulled you into a long queue in front of a delicious-smelling vendor. She drops your wrist; your heart ceases to hammer like the onset of a panic attack.

"Candy apples? You're losing your mind over candy apples?"

"You've never had _these_ candy apples. They're fucking brilliant – you'll split one with me, yeah?"

"I've not even had lunch," you laugh.

"And you're suddenly too grown-up now to have sweets in lieu of a proper meal?" she challenges.

"In all fairness, Emily, you're the one who just used the word _partner_."

She slaps your arm and there's something so endearing about the way she says, "Oh, fuck off," that you feel something long overdue suddenly right itself again.

* * *

You cave to the apple and end up sat at a table in the shade, desperately trying to eat the thing before the sun melts all the chocolate. Emily had insisted on the Chocoholic Supreme, which is dipped once in vanilla toffee, then a creamy, Belgian chocolate and finished with a drizzle of white chocolate. Even still, she's argued that you're technically eating _fruit_ for lunch, which is clearly an acceptably, adult meal.

"So this is a rare treat then?" you ask.

Emily's nodding, sucking the chocolate from her fingers not at all delicately.

"The shop's not in London so they don't often make it to the market. I don't think I've seen them here yet this summer."

"And what about Rose? She doesn't fancy candy apples?"

"Bit of a health nut, actually."

"Ah, well, no wonder you get on so well."

She narrows her eyes at you, scowls for a split second before saying, "We've plenty of other things in common _obviously_."

"Obviously," you say.

You're about to ask her to elaborate when she says, "And what about you?"

"What about me?"

"I mean, you're here for work, obviously, but are you – or, is there – back home, is there someone?"

The way she struggles to ask, as if she's not entirely certain she's prepared for the answer, warms your skin and you smile at her, fondly, when you say, "Not for ages."

She looks away, and it feels like the kind of moment that could go on, without any other words between you, for a very long time. The sun is touching everything – the tops of the tents from the market so bright white, you can barely look at them.

"You're going to like her," Emily finally says.

"No pressure or anything," you say lightly.

"You just will," she shrugs. "Everyone loves Rose – it can't be helped."

You nearly believe yourself when you say, "I'm sure she's lovely."

Emily finds a stray piece of chocolate on the paper tray between you and snatches it up.

"You know how to get to the flat then?"

"I'm fairly certain I can navigate, yes. But, in the event I get lost, these smart phones are terribly useful, aren't they?"

"Ha ha – you're fucking hilarious. I hope you _do_ get lost."

"Thanks a lot!" you laugh, folding your arms along your stomach. "And is this how you treat all your dinner guests? Wishing on them misfortune before they've even stepped inside your flat?"

"Of course not – you're the exception, naturally."

You clear your throat and look back to the small, paper tray between you hoping to distract yourself with the apple that's no longer there. Because some things just sound too familiar, too reminiscent of an old life, when they come out of Emily's mouth. You want to ask her if she knows what it feels like to be sat in front of her again; if she knows that so much of it feels exactly the same as it did. As it always has.

"I should get going – I've got flowers to buy, you know," is what you say instead.

"I suppose I should finish my shop," she says, a bit resigned.

No one's moving to leave, to stand, to shift at all, even though you've just agreed that your time is up. Time is unkind, you think; it's a thought you've had so often where Emily is concerned.

"Thanks for the apple," you say.

"Thanks for the flowers," Emily answers, and when you laugh she says with a shrug, "Just practicing my delivery."

"Well," you say, finally standing. "I expect a bit more enthusiasm than that, Emily."

"Duly noted."

She stands as well, folding the paper tray from the apple in half. When you exhale in preparation to tell her you're off, she looks up at you and says, "This has been nice – running into you again, I mean. Or, running into you at all, really."

There are several things threatening to explode from within you – none of which are appropriate to say to someone who's just told you they are indefinitely _partnered_ to someone else – so you press your lips together very firmly and watch as Emily tries to anticipate your response.

After what feels like too long, you tell her the truth. "It's been very nice indeed."

She holds your eye for longer than you expect her to, so to distract yourself from thinking about the lovely colour of them – that dark, rich brown that makes everything in your body feel warmer than it should – you look back towards the market, flip a strand of hair behind your ear.

"What time did you say to come round?" you ask, hoping that talk of dinner will remind you of adulthood, and of Rose, and of the Emily standing here now and not the one from so many years ago.

"Seven would be great for us."

"Perfect – I'll ring you when I've arrived. Enjoy your shop," you say with a wave of your arm in the direction of the tents.

"Thanks. See you later."

You wave, a stilted one because it's well awkward waving to someone who's stood right in front of you, and then head off in opposite directions. The crowds seem to have died out a bit during your impromptu luncheon and you're able to purchase a large bouquet of daises, wrapped in brown paper and beautiful ribbons, without much wait.

"I was just thinking –"

You jump, quite literally, at the sound of her voice and pull the hand that was replacing money into your pocket up to your chest as you turn to face her.

"_Jesus_, you're jumpy," she's laughing as you try to recover.

"You should've gone into fucking espionage, sneaking up on people like that."

"Sorry," she says but because she's also still reeling in her laughter, you're not inclined to believe her.

"So, you were thinking?"

"I was thinking you should just walk about the market with me."

"Oh, I should?"

"Yes, you should. I've got a thousand things I want to know, and dinner will be horribly boring if I'm forced to wait until then and subject you to my rapid fire questioning."

"A _thousand_ things you want to know, ey?"

"Roughly."

"Can't imagine I have a thousand things worth telling," you say.

"Running your mouth was never a problem before – I'm sure you'll manage."

You glance at your watch for no reason. You've got nowhere to go and the only person you're honestly interested in seeing is standing, albeit defiantly, right in front of you.

"Well, with compliments like that, how can I say no?"

Emily beams triumphantly as you fall into stride and head farther into the market.


	3. Chapter 3

**Author's Note:** This chap essentially wrote itself which is the only reason I'm updating so fucking quickly. I will attempt to allow subsequent chaps write themselves as well though they can be quite stubborn at times.

** My NY disclaimer: I do not dislike the city and rather enjoy my visits so Naomi's comment is not a mechanism to voice my opinion on that. Cheers!

* * *

Emily's game of incessant questioning while perusing vegetables had been cut short thanks to a phone call from one of your artists, frantic and catastrophising as is his tendency. But you'd covered much of the basics and feel marginally less anxious when stepping out of the cab in front of Rose and Emily's flat.

Emily met Rose doing post-grad work in literature, and they've been seeing each other steadily ever since [going on four years].

Emily is working towards her PhD, but currently works part-time as a professor – an enticing visual that was not easily brushed from your mind as she spoke about her passion for knowledge and education.

Emily doesn't cook – still can't fry a proper egg, you imagine – so the market shop had been upon Rose's request for a meal she's preparing. Your anxiety levels surge only minutely as this thought resurfaces, in hopes you won't have to fake your way around complimenting a shit meal.

But actually nothing has prepared you for the moment you actually meet Rose. _Emily's_ Rose. Because you've never known Emily to belong to anyone other than yourself. The notion of it twists in your stomach because you should have already gone through this – this meeting significant others of your exes. Of Emily, specifically. Because, on the very real chance you simply cannot stand the sight of them together, storming out the flat in a rage of emotions would have been so much more acceptable at 21 rather than at 31.

At your age, you're meant to be civil, at the least. And bloody _charming_, at your best. Which is what you've convinced yourself to be – warm and interested and gracious – as you walk up the front steps and reach for your mobile.

Of course everything goes to shit once you see that Rose is stunning and blonde and _pregnant_.

And Emily just keeps smiling at the both of you, this incredibly unguarded look like she's fucking proud of herself for making this happen. This introduction of her past to her present. You're certain she's saying lovely things about one of you, gesturing between you both as Rose reaches out, grabs warmly to your shoulders and kisses your cheek. But everything's muffled and distant like Emily's mouth is full of cotton.

" … says we've got a piece of the art world among us." Rose smiles when she pulls back, watching as you try to form words while the sensation of her bloated, fucking _womb_ still feels heavy against your stomach.

You're touching it – your own stomach – but staring at hers when you manage a belated, "Sorry?"

"Emily says you're working with some local curators on an installation?" She turns from you slightly then, and the profile is almost worse than looking at her head-on.

You're all stood in the kitchen, and it smells incredible, but your first instinct is to run for the toilet. You refrain, though barely.

"Yes, that's right," you say, only now feeling as though you can both speak _and_ look to Emily without throttling her on the spot. "There's a group of us – curators, that is – working on a multi-media presentation down at the Asylum." You've done it now – a completed sentence – and can breathe a bit easier as a result. The rest of the evening, you think, can only go up from here.

"That space is amazing – I'll be looking forward to the opening," Rose says. "But Emily said you were only in town temporarily?"

"I am, yes. Probably a month or so. I'm based out of New York at the moment – been living on the other side of the pond for quite some time, actually."

Emily's wearing an expression that you can't quite place, but when you raise an eyebrow to her she just nods, minutely, as if she's just figured something out.

* * *

The meal is amazing and Rose's personality is every bit as infectious as Emily led you to believe. She's older, you speculate by a generous margin, but aging looks good on her. She's beautiful by anyone's standards, but at one point, you're watching Emily. And you see it. You see the way she's looking at her, the way her days begin and end with Rose. The memory of it is so haunting, so suddenly tragic, you excuse yourself from the table immediately for the loo.

"So, no embarrassing or incriminating tales of Emily as a young college student then?" Rose pries, sipping delicately from her glass of sparkling water.

"Afraid not, Emily was terribly boring at sixteen. Or has she led you to believe otherwise?" You're feeling much more relaxed, concentrating more on Rose and less on Emily. Also, the wine helps. "Honestly, Emily was more like the moral compass for the rest of us – for her sister, certainly."

"You're making me sound _awful_!" Emily protests.

"It was meant to be a compliment, obviously," you laugh.

"It's alright, Naomi, I'm familiar with of few stories Emily chose to tell – I've read the essays, and they were lovely."

"The essays?"

"Emily wrote beautiful essays about her younger years – about her family, about you."

You manage not to choke on your wine, but end up taking a less-than-graceful sip. "Oh _really_?"

"Babe," Emily turns her face from you, places a hand on Rose's knee. "Your opinions on my writing are a bit biased, no?"

"Bollocks – they were some of my favourites long before I was shagging you, darling."

She's blushing rather furiously when she's turned back to see your look of confusion. "Rose was a professor of mine, once upon a time."

"Oh." You sip again, finishing the last of your wine. "Well, perhaps you were a bit more deviant after all."

* * *

The bottle of wine poured at dinner is empty by the time you've helped clear the dishes and eaten dessert, so Emily pulls another from the fridge then looks to you, asking a question with raised eyebrows and no words.

"I should get going, actually."

"Of course not," Rose answers, struggling to pull herself from the sofa. You're helping her up, offering your hand like a goddamn gentleman before you even realise it. "Thank you," she says, gripping a bit tighter to your hand and insisting, "Stay and keep Emily company for a bit – just because I'm a sleepy cow at half nine doesn't mean either of you should have to call it a night."

There's a quaint, little balcony at the front of the flat that looks down on the quiet street below. So you help yourself to some fresh air and a sneaky fag when Emily says she's heading upstairs with Rose to say goodnight.

"Haven't they banned smoking in New York by now?"

"Just about," you answer, blowing a cloud of smoke over the balcony's edge. "Why do you think I returned to England?"

"I assumed it was for the weather."

She's stood beside you, mirroring your position with her elbows leant on the banister. You don't look over at her when you say rather placidly, "Rose is lovely."

"You like her." Her relief is palpable.

"What's not to like?" Another drag and you're nearly prepared to face the pregnant elephant in the room.

Emily, of course, beats you to it. "You're not angry then?"

"Angry, why? Because when you were filling me in on your life, you didn't think to mention that Rose – who is lovely, whom I'll adore – is also very much with child?"

"So you _are_ angry."

You laugh, though it's not because you're finding humour in any of this, and flick the end of your fag into the street below.

"I've nothing to be angry about. I just –" you do turn to her then, cross your arms along your stomach. "Why didn't you tell me?"

"I just – wasn't sure, I guess."

"Wasn't sure about what?"

"How much to tell you, all at once."

"I don't understand." And you don't, at all. Your head is still spinning from it, trying to sort something out when Emily breathes out something heavy and leans the small of her back against the balcony's edge. She crosses her arms and looks into the flat.

"If things were different – if it were me, finding out about this new life of yours with a _'Rose'_ and a … family on the way." She ends it there, just sort of trails off and runs a hand through her hair.

"Hey," you say gently. When you place a hand lightly on her arm, it strikes you that this is the first you've touched in so many days. In so many years.

"It would be hard for me to take in," she finishes.

Your hand drops on its own because you've since lost feeling in your limbs. Because Emily always does this – says the things you've not allowed yourself to _think_, let alone say out loud.

* * *

After another glass of wine you remember to ask, "So, there are essays about me, hey?"

"If you think you're privy to read them, you're fucking delusional," Emily says, settling into the sofa across from you in their sitting room.

"But they're _about_ me," you argue.

"Precisely! And anyway, they were written a hundred years ago when I was still shit at everything and figuring out my own voice." She's shaking her head, swirling the wine in her glass as she looks down at it. "I can promise you, they're nothing spectacular."

You consider your next question, though clearly not long enough because it's coming out of your mouth before you've prepared for any consequence. "So does that mean that Rose knows –" you stop, pull your top lip between your teeth.

"She's aware of your significance, yes," Emily says, taking a slow sip and smirking at you when she's through.

_There isn't enough wine in Italy_, you think, to lessen the effect of that look.

"So, New York," she says, reaching forward to refill your glass.

"Brooklyn, actually, but yes."

"Hmm." She's nodding again, topping off her own glass with the remainder of the bottle.

"What – what is that _look_?" you ask, close to laughing.

"Nothing, it just makes sense."

"What – me in New York? I can't imagine why – I've always generally hated foreign cities. Especially loud, pretentious, American ones."

"No, well yes, sort of. It's just, I could never figure out where you'd gone – why we'd never crossed paths all that time. But of course, now it makes sense – we weren't even on the same fucking continent."

"I needed a change." You hate yourself for saying it, for all its implications and how you're not ready to have this conversation _at all_, let alone in a flat Emily shares with her very pregnant partner.

"Yes, I recall." It's not malicious, and in fact her voice goes so soft you wouldn't have heard it if you weren't also sitting still as church mice.

The wine Emily had poured goes down quickly after that, and you have a sense you're both less-inclined to catch up on each other's lives as you had been earlier in the evening. So before long, you're saying your goodbyes at her front door, leaning in awkwardly for a one-arm hug that leaves you feeling more tense than anything.

"Please thank Rose again for me – dinner was absolutely amazing. And congratulations, of course, to you both," you say.

She doesn't look as if she believes you any more than you believe yourself, honestly, but you smile at one another just the same.

"You're ok getting back? Are you sure I can't call you a car?"

"I'll be fine – feel like walking a bit anyway. I'll catch a cab a few streets up."

She nods, bites at her lip then says, "We'll talk again, yeah?"

There's a hopefulness to her tone – one that's always been there; and whether Emily realises it or not, it's one you've never been able to turn away.

"Of course. Call me next week."

"I will. See you."

"Yeah, see you."

A block from the flat, you find your mobile and quickly find the number in your contacts. After four rings, the line picks up.

"You're never going to fucking believe who I've just had dinner with," you say even before a greeting of any sort.

And somewhere behind her low, unaffected laugh, you hear three clicks of a lighter.


	4. Chapter 4

**Author's Note:** Salutes all around to those of you who figured out the mystery call Naomi makes at the end of the last chap. And for those of you who didn't, hang your heads in shame [this means you, **fookyeah** - and you call yourself a Keffy fan ...]. Hang them IN SHAME. Alright, chins up, all's forgiven :) This might be one of my favourite bits yet - though we've a long way to go so I'm sure that will change - but again, please do share what _you_ think of it. I do love to hear your thoughts and try as often as possible to respond.

** Side note: if you haven't yet seen the incomparable Lily Loveless in The Crash, sweet baby Jesus Christ - I nearly wept to see her on my telly again, and am finally coming around to the idea of her as a brunette and not bottle blonde.

* * *

The phone call had kept you company on your walk the night previous, but ultimately ended too quickly. So it's no surprise she'd suggested, or rather _demanded_, you meet for brunch the following morning. The warm, sunny weather from Saturday's been swapped out with something more typical, and you almost sigh in relief upon pulling on your rain jacket and stepping outside. _Something just feels more authentic when London is damp_, you think.

It's a short walk to Roast, a brunch spot in Borough's Market, and before long you're being led to a small table near the back and met with the only other set of eyes – besides Emily's – that have ever truly terrified you.

"I prefer blondes, you know."

You smile politely to the hostess as she pulls back your chair then sigh as you look back to the table.

"Not even three seconds in and I'm already a disappointment, ey?"

"I'd hate to think we'd broken tradition." Effy stands to pull you into a loose hug. When she leans back and looks at you, that barely-there smile always threatening to reveal all your secrets, you find her hand, give it a squeeze. "I'm drinking bellinis – you need to catch up," she demands, so casually that it's as if she couldn't care whether or not you comply. "Apparently you're still operating on American time where punctuality is considered _passé_."

"You're just jealous I went without you," you say, taking the seat across from her.

"Fucking right I am!" she says just loud enough you almost believe she means it. "How long are you back then?"

The waitress approaches and you tell her to bring whatever Effy's drinking.

"A month, maybe more."

"Maybe more depending on …" She sips from her champagne flute, eyeing you over its petit rim.

"How smoothly things go with the installation, and ultimately with the opening – the space is quite different from others I've worked, so –"

"So not because of old, redheaded ghosts wafting back into your life unexpectedly."

The eye roll, you can't control [you never could], besides you'd prepared for as much from Effy when agreeing to meet. Knowing that sharing the information in the first place had been like waving a red flag in front of a charging bull.

"Not fucking likely, or have you forgotten the wife and child?" And then, as if it matters, "Besides, she's gotten rid of the red. It's dark now, more like Katie's."

She counts off one finger, "_Not_ a wife, technically," then raises a second digit, "and it's not like the kid's officially hers yet. You can't adopt a foetus, can you?"

"Semantics," you say and then sigh nearly audibly when the drink arrives because you've never been very comfortable having Effy analyse your life where alcohol wasn't involved. "She's happy. _They're_ happy."

"Bollocks."

You've drained half the glass before setting it back down. "Of course she's happy – she's living the life she wanted. She gets the happy ending."

"Happy ending my arse," Effy scoffs, motions for two more drinks.

"Fine, happy endings are for fairy tales and fairy tales are for children. But you get my point."

"It can't be a fairy tale if the princess gives up love for something lesser."

"And am I to play the hopeless princess in this contrived scenario, or is she?"

Effy grins wickedly, drinks the last sip of her cocktail. "Take your pick."

"Fates and fairy tales don't really seem like your bag, Eff – I have to say it's rather heart-warming."

"Fuck off," she says dully.

Your laugh is light when you look off to the windows and catch just a glimpse of St. Paul's Cathedral in the distance. "How's work?" you ask, knowing that shifting the conversation away from Emily is futile but worth a shot at least.

"It's boring as fuck, and I've no interest in discussing _either_ of our careers at the moment. That's the content of emails and long-distance phone calls, Naomi. But I've got you _here_, in the flesh," she says raising a glass towards you, "so we're sure as fuck going to get pissed and talk about your love life."

"Should be a rather brief conversation then," you sigh, and gamely clink your glass against hers.

"Says the girl who's run into her bloody soulmate after a decade and can't even say her name."

"_Emily_," you say with emphasis and making pointed eye contact, "is not my fucking _soulmate_. She'll always mean a great deal to me." You look to your hand on the table because it's never been easy being brutally honest with Effy, and particularly not while looking her in the eye. "But the rest of it – the love life and the family, the happily-ever-_fucking_-after – it belongs to someone else."

"Thieving slag."

"You can't nick something if it doesn't belong to anyone else, can you?"

The second round arrives but you leave yours sat on the table, and Effy seems momentarily distracted by something so you flip open the menu.

It's when she says with a look of serious consideration, "With Emily off the market, you could always ring Katie and see if it's a goer," that you're exceptionally grateful you'd _not_ taken a sip because spitting bellinis across a table at brunch is probably frowned upon.

* * *

Effy is apparently still just as reliable a mate as she's always been for getting you well off your tits, and Sunday brunch had been no exception, so that by Monday morning you're still feeling a bit sluggish. The morning drags but the venue is cool and damp, some kind of naturalistic cure for a hangover. By lunch you're feeling more like yourself except that you're extremely distracted by the placement of one of the artists' pieces – it's not yet displayed but you're staring at a proposed diagram of the space – which is why you fumble for your mobile and answer without even checking the ID.

"This is Naomi." Your face is still screwed up, glancing between the paper layout and the wall, and your fingers tangled up in your loose hair as you pin the phone between your ear and shoulder.

"Hi." The voice is scratchy and cautious and chipper all at once and there's only one, fucking person you've ever known who starts phone calls in this way. "It's Emily."

"Emily, hi." You squint at the wall once more before giving up entirely and heading outside.

"I didn't know if you'd answer – you must be busy, I imagine."

"I am – we are, yes. The early stages are always the most time-consuming." You suddenly wish you had a fag, but you'd left them back at the hotel _on purpose_ because you don't even really smoke anymore, not really, and your throat is still so fucking raw from your time with Effy, who is more like a chimney _on speed_.

"Right, yeah, I figured. No time for a late lunch then?"

"I was just going to grab something quick, actually. Eat on site, you know." You lean up against the outside of the building, its walls cold and stone and rough. "Anyway, don't you have work? Furthering the great minds of Britain's finest or something?"

Emily laughs. You kick one foot up against the wall behind you and convince yourself it's not to keep from tipping over.

"I teach in the mornings on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays – still just part-time, you know?" She sighs, and you think of her mouth, the way it's probably twisting around in thought. "The afternoons I spend writing usually, it's just that with you here." She stops again without finishing her thought. And you wonder just how Emily has been charged with teaching the writings of renowned authors if she can't even complete a bloody sentence.

"What have I got to do with anything?"

"Well, it's just – a bit distracting."

_Fucking_ fags in the _fucking_ hotel. You reach down for a twig beside your shoe. Snap it between your fingers instead.

"Sorry, that's a shit thing to say," she rushes to say when you remain silent. I didn't mean –"

"No, it's fine. I get it." You breathe out, heavily. Tip your head back against the wall and look off to the gardens. "It's all been a bit odd. Being back, and then –"

"I know." You think maybe she doesn't; but then, since it's Emily, she probably fucking does.

Regrettably, you've never known how to say the right things to her, and so, true to form, you tell her to come by the site, if she'd like.

"Really? Is that alright?"

It's not, and for reasons having fuck-all to do with artist privacy, or the fact that you're so busy you can't even think straight. But you've started down some terribly unpredictable path with her, yet again, and the inability to veer from it feels almost repetitive.

* * *

Emily predictably gasps and sighs at the structure, at the beautifully preserved history of the space, and then you're both sat in the garden eating Mediterranean sandwiches wrapped in pita bread.

"I had brunch with Effy," you tell her, wiping a bit of hummus from the corner of your mouth.

Emily's eyes go wide in what looks like pleasant surprise while she chews. "I had no idea she was around. Christ, haven't thought of her in years."

"We've kept in touch, a bit," you admit, then hope it doesn't come off as anything other than informative.

"How is she?"

You shrug because Effy was never one to be described adequately by the English language. "Relatively similar to sixth form, actually. Obnoxiously subdued and perceptive." And then you laugh and append, "She's introduced colour into her wardrobe."

"Tell her I said hello, if you see her again."

"I will," you say, and then consider never telling Effy about this meeting, _ever_.

"I really can't get over this place," Emily says, looking back over to the building. "It seems all too gorgeous, even in its current state, to have ever housed lunatics."

Your mouth is full of food so you cover it instinctively when laughing, and Emily just eyes you inquisitively until you can clear your throat.

"It's not – or it wasn't, rather, a madhouse. The Asylum was part of a collection of almshouses, or living accommodations for the poor and elderly near the end of the seventeenth century."

She watches you and the look is something so reminiscent of a time you'd once rambled on about _Hamlet_ and soliloquy, you have to clear your throat before continuing.

"This chapel," you motion towards it with a bob of your head, "barely survived a bombing during World War II, since it was mostly gutted, save for the stained glass. A rather remarkable bit of history, I've always thought."

Emily doesn't say anything at first, just sort of sits there looking at you until the only thing you can think to do it apologise for boring her with historical facts.

"No, it's a lovely story. I just forgot what it was like." She smiles, but more to herself than anyone because she's looked downward and slowly shakes her head.

You furrow your brow, bite at your bottom lip to keep from taking the bait, but you've never been that good at self-restraint.

"What what was like?"

"Hearing you talk about your interests, your passions." She selects a spot over your left shoulder, locks her eyes with it studiously.

"Can't say I've ever really considered myself passionate about warfare," you smirk, despite the sweat gathering in your palms, in the creases of your knees.

"Twat," she laughs and then does look at you, and it feels like the precursor to something so dangerous you've no choice but to leave immediately.

"I've got to get back, but thanks," you gesture to the remains of food on the bench between you, "for the recommendation. And the company."

"Sure," she says, then smiles so easily you can't _believe_ you're expected to walk away without kissing her.

You should tell her you can't keep meeting up – accidental or otherwise – because it feels too familiarly clandestine. Like instead of coffee shops and open markets it could just as well be toilet stalls and secluded lakes. You should tell her that in some ways she's already been unfaithful to Rosalind, to the family they're creating, just by sitting with you in some fucking park and talking about history. Just by bloody _looking_ at you. You should tell her it's all making you a bit sick, turning your stomach to think of somehow mucking it all up – even if she never bends to temptation, even if _for her_ the temptation isn't there – this life she's got, this happiness she's found in your absence. You should tell her, at the very fucking least, that work is too demanding and you'll be gone from London before you ever again have the chance to meet.

But you say something worse, because it's always been a talent of yours. "I'll be virtually chained to this place for the next several weeks. Come by again if you like?"

"I'll call you," she says, then squeezes a hand just once to your upper arm before heading off.

* * *

**Update:** Sorry, just noticed a grammatical error of the sort that makes my skin crawl and had to fix [their/thery're; your/you're, it happens people]. While I'm back, wanted to point out that Naomi's art venue is very real, and incredibly stunning [as is the history behind it]. In case you're unable to take a stroll there yourself, google that shit. Cheers! SM


	5. Chapter 5

The week following your lunch – and you hesitate sickeningly to call it a _date_ – in Caroline Gardens, Emily sends you two texts.

One to say that Rose is in labour, so lunch will have to wait.

The second just says: _It's a boy_ followed by a gross display of exclamation points.

In a spectacularly backwards fashion, you immediately toss into the tiny bin that's kept tucked under the desk in your room, and then drink a bottle-and-a-half of wine.

_Fucking pull yourself together_, you say to your reflection at some point. And the lighting is dim. And your eyes look heavy, framed in dark circles. And your lips don't move as you say it, so it's probably just your fucking internal monologue or something. Except the words sound very loud in the small space of your hotel room.

You're drinking from one of those small, plastic cups always left by hotel sinks [likely meant for _water_] and it feels just about as silly and desperate as being sixteen and slinging it straight from the bottle, which at some point, is what ends up happening. And although people have always said you were _clever_, you find it rather pathetic that you've still not worked out the same dilemma you'd faced at that age: how to be without Emily.

You pass out at half ten and wake up at six the following morning to discover – by the fucking hand of god or something – that you didn't once text, or worse yet _dial,_ Emily's number.

* * *

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" is how Effy greets you later.

You can't even say it out loud, and just the thought of the words on your tongue nearly activates your gag reflex again, so you just pull up the text and slide your mobile in front of her.

"Well that'll explain the stench." She motions for the bartender, some bloke who looks like a footballer that probably couldn't hack it and is left to tend pubs in too-tight polo shirts with the collars popped for the rest of his life. "Why the fuck didn't you call me sooner, you sodding idiot?"

"Would've had to share the wine." You say flatly then smile, disingenuous and forced, and Effy just places a cool hand at the small of your back.

You'd worked for half the morning then fucked off, citing a migraine, and met up with Effy. You don't ask how it is that _she's_ able to fuck off from work as well – since you'd hardly given her more than a 30 minute warning – but, well, it's _Effy,_ and you've never once known her to not do whatever she bloody well pleases. It's about the most unprofessional thing you've done since entering this line of work, and the guilt over having abandoned the project for a fucking _hangover_ is making an already shit day feel even worse.

"Not to be a prick," Effy starts, swirling a cocktail straw around her glass – she'd ordered you both vodka on the rocks, and the first sip tasted like an entire two years of your life – and looking straight ahead. "But, you did sort of realise this was on the horizon, yeah? Once you'd met Rose?" She mimes a distended belly with her hand over her own stomach.

"It's not any easier." Your voice breaks on _easier_, as if the word itself is a struggle as much as anything.

"Course not."

You wait for more – for the part where Effy lays it all out in her trademark cryptic speak, dispensing sage advice to the lesser of you that could never work out anything on your own. You know for sure you're fucked then when she says nothing; because it means the worst is true.

Even still, you ask, "What am I supposed to do?"

When she looks directly at you, it's worse. "Do the right thing."

"I don't think you live in a world of rights and wrongs, Eff."

"No," she says and orders two more. "But you do."

* * *

You send flowers, and when prompted, include a tiny, blue baby rattle.

When you don't have to worry about seeing Emily – in person or flashed across your caller ID – you resituate your priorities solely to the art opening, and it becomes invigorating to have reclaimed that time and energy. You'd let everything slip for just a handful of days, but it feels like longer because every day, the space is changing. The artistry with which you're involved is fucking brilliant, and you revel in that for a solid week – spending long days at the venue, sharing bottles of wine with the lot of them after hours. Effy comes along with you most nights, and you've yet to figure out if it's just her natural inclination towards the outcasts and radicals of society that's drawn her in, or her protective nature of an old friend.

The absolute most she pries is to say, "Alright?" one evening when you're both smoking outside some dodgy pub where Trevor – your neurotic, obsessive muralist – had 'felt a good vibe' from the pavement just outside and insisted you all head in for drinks.

You exhale loudly, flick ash from the tip of your fag and say, "Suppose so." You're both leant up against the wall of the place, and it might as well be fucking Fishpond's on a rainy weeknight when you'd all manage to end up at the same place without really trying. "Feel a bit stir crazy sometimes."

"You need a fucking social life that consists of more than just your work mates and your ex-girlfriend."

"I've got a social life, _thanks_ – just so happens to exist on another fucking continent, yeah?" You push off the brick wall, lean against it with your shoulder instead so that you're essentially just watching Effy as she takes these long, languid drags off her cigarette. "'Sides, I've got you, right?"

You've never really felt cool enough to consider Effy a friend, even though from the very start, she'd sort of wedged herself into that role. Sometimes you're not even conscious of it – just how ill-fitted you are as mates because you've always secretly cared about the opinions of others while Effy's clearly never given a single fuck – until moments like these.

When you watch as her head lolls until she's facing you and says, "Thick as thieves, me and you," with some wicked grin that glints behind the blue in her eyes that have always been a more unsettling hue than your own. And the smoke just slips between her lips on every syllable and floats away.

* * *

The invite comes on a voicemail. And not because you'd been screening your calls – because you're not even that fucking certain you'd be able to ignore a call from her at this point – but because you were in a meeting.

You're minimally prepared for the sound of her voice, because you've bloody well committed her number to memory by now [even if you've not saved her as an _actual_ contact], but the content of the message feels like a leaden, fucking anvil at the pit of your stomach.

Like a coward, you respond via text and ask: _Alright if I bring Effy?_

"Remind me why I'm here again?" Effy's clung to the crook of your elbow, huddled close to your ear as you make your way towards Rose and Emily's flat.

"Because I'm not fucking doing this _alone_ – I need some moral support and you're as good as I've got on short notice," you say, hurrying her along like you've been left to walk your granny to fucking Sunday service or something.

"Right," she says, and then, "Remind me why _you're_ here again?"

You exhale in disgust at the _absurdity_ of her question. "Because it would be _more_ weird if I'd declined. I can't be rude so soon after we've just … reconnected."

"Oh sure, save that for when you're screwing – remind her of how sweet things were the first time around, yeah?"

"Jesus _Christ_, Eff – that's not what I fucking meant!" She laughs and you can feel it against your side where she's clutching. "Thick as thieves, yeah? What happened there?"

"Relax, I'm fucking aces at awkward encounters."

The pull against her is so abrupt, she nearly stumbles forward before righting herself and facing you where you've stopped short.

"What the _fuck_?"

"You're fucking stoned." Asking Effy questions has always been a waste of breath. That much you've learnt by now.

"I would have offered to share, but you've always been a bit twitchy around spliff in mixed company." She's found her laugh again and is reaching to reclaim your arm except you shrug her off and scowl so hard your face actually hurts.

"I do _not_ want to be thieves with you anymore," you say between gritted teeth then storm off, in a spectacular display of petulance.

You're stood at the door before remembering that you actually can't, physically, walk through it alone because beyond it lies an infant and his mother, and _Emily_. So you just cross your arms tightly over your chest and turn to wait for Effy as she continues along at her lazily seductive gait that she probably fucking perfected at age 12 for how effortless it's always looked.

"Stop scowling," she lightly scolds once you're both stood side-by-side. "You'll frighten the baby."

It's Emily who answers – her face just as radiant as you've always imagined motherhood would look on her, which is a thought that causes you to immediately forego your break-up with Effy and reach down to clutch her hand.

"You came!" Emily pulls you into a hug first, then reaches for Effy next and it's a funny sight because you can't remember a time when they'd ever been particularly affectionate. "Effy – _Jesus_, it's good to see you. Been fucking ages, hasn't it? Come in, come in." She waves you forward with both hands and the flat is just crowded with people and voices and laughter.

You're just looking at her thinking: _I can't believe it's been ten days_. Which is such a ridiculous thought on which to linger because it's so obviously the _ten years_ that have made all the difference. Effy's elbow finds your ribcage and you clear your throat, hold up a small gift bag to Emily.

"I brought books. For the baby. He's too little, obviously, to read them. Or comprehend them even. Probably. But I thought – well, you teach so – and besides literature –"

"Shut up, Naomi," Effy says quietly, evenly.

Emily reaches out for the bag, smiles warmly and less bubbled over in excitement when she says, "Thank you, it's the perfect gift."

On cue, Effy pulls out a wooden box [from where you're unclear], slender and used, and presents it to Emily who's not yet unlocked her eyes from yours. "I've brought spliff."

"Jesus Christ," you mumble, placing your free hand on your forehead.

But Emily just brightens her smile and laughs, taking the gift with a short nod. "Cheers, Effy."

"Where's the guest of honour then?" Effy asks.

Everyone's just sort of milling about it seems, but you can detect a great deal of high-pitched chatter coming from the sitting room.

"Lewis is sat with Rose – or, well, whoever's managed to snatch him up at the moment – in the sitting room. Would you like to meet him?"

You'd very much like to bolt – run through the front door, without looking back – because you should have delayed this moment. You should have declined the fucking invite altogether. You should have avoided this whole affair for a bit longer. Like _forever_.

Emily doesn't even look to you, and you wonder what it means that she's got these wildly excited eyes focused on Effy alone.

"Can't wait," Effy says, with the kind of droned inflection typically reserved for nature documentaries.

When it's over, you've walked about a block from the flat then realise the attendees for the 'Welcome Home Baby Lewis' party had been all friends and colleagues – not one member of Emily's family making an appearance. Not even James, who'd always fancied lesbians almost as much as Emily. So you can't help but worry then that she's still, all these years later, dealing with their intolerance. And then nearly trip over your own feet at the thought of seeing _Katie_ and what that would have looked like, what with Effy in tow. _The small blessings of near misses_, you think.

Effy just sort of regards you curiously as you recover, and you're not sure what kind of expression you must be wearing having just _met Emily's fucking son_, but Effy just lights up the fag pinched lightly between her lips and says, "Come on then, let's get pissed for the rest of the day."

* * *

The installation opening keeps looming, the pressure of it building, until you check your calendar and realise it's less than a week away. And because her timing has always been fucking brilliant, Emily rings you in the midst of everything.

"I'd like to see you, if you've any time for lunch. Or coffee even."

And you can't quite place it, but there's a quality to her voice – to the request itself – that sounds foreign not because you've not heard it before, but because you've not heard it in _so long_.

People are just teeming everywhere around you, hauling lumber and film equipment, lighting and draperies. Everyone's on a mobile or a tablet, everyone's directing and moving. But you're just stood still, listening to the silence stretch along the line; and the sound of it is so much louder than anything else.


	6. Chapter 6

**Author's Note:** I'd not originally planned to do this, but it seems the general consensus is that getting Emily's perspective would be nice. And well, I have to agree because she is sort of fucking wonderful, isn't she? So I've now got a plan in place on when and where she'll come about, and it's something I think will work for the piece as a whole. I'm actually sort of excited about it. Of course, I'm sure you'll let me know whether or not you agree.

This chap is a pretty good blueprint for how the rest of Emily's POV will be written going forward, and I don't want to spell anything out for you because I think you'll catch on but if it's confusing in any way please drop a line - I'm always very interested in feedback. This chapter [as well as future chaps, probably] isn't written entirely from Emily's POV, but I think you'll catch onto that as well so I'm going to shut my gob about it.

* * *

"I don't know what to tell you – she saw the acceptance letter and proceeded to throw money at me like a fucking lunatic."

"Yes, well, I'm not sure _this_ is what she had in mind," you say, thrusting the airline tickets in her direction for emphasis.

You're sat on the bed, leant up against its wall of pillows she insists on having even though most nights she'll fall asleep without _any_ of them. Instead just laid flat against the mattress, like an infant with disproportionately long legs.

"Of fucking _course_ it is – have you met my mum?" Naomi's flopped down onto the bed beside you and you bounce just once against the mattress from the impact. "I've fucking aced my A-levels, been accepted to university, and what I want as reward for my studious achievements is to take my girlfriend to the fucking Caribbean. Alright?"

There are moments, you think, where nothing else matters but the colour of her eyes when she's determined. When she's happy. When she looks at you and you have to believe that she'll never look at anyone else this way, ever again.

"Emily," she whinges.

"We don't even speak Spanish," you say, through the breath of a laugh. It's such a thin argument, but you're grasping at straws because the offer is preposterous.

"_Bollocks_ – the entire area's been horribly Americanised anyway." She hooks just one finger into your trousers, pulls so that you have to roll a bit onto your side, facing her. "Besides, you and me, Fitch, we can be quite resourceful, yeah?"

The way you stop fighting against the smile crawling across your lips and look up to find her wide-eyed and grinning like an idiot, is as much a concession as anything.

"After this," she starts more quietly, looking down to where her hand is still tucked beneath your shirt. Her thumb still softly moving against your hipbone.

"No," you cut in with a determination you've learnt to be quite effective where Naomi is concerned. "We're not talking about it, remember? We promised."

University and post-college plans had always mostly been a black hole of uncertainty – first with Katie, knowing your marks were never really very aligned; then with Naomi, knowing that your decision on where to go would always, in part, be linked to her. And now that she's decided and you haven't, the inevitable is all the more looming. So the tactic of avoidance, you've more than mastered.

She looks up at you then – smiles in a way that you will never, fully be able to take in all at once – and so you've pinched together your lips and looked away when she says quietly, "Then come on holiday with me."

* * *

She gets too much sun the first day and spends the next two days crying about the straps on her bra until you remind her she could just opt out of wearing one altogether because, chances are, her breasts will never again be as perky as they are at eighteen.

"Excuse me, are you implying that my tits will somehow not always look as _fucking fantastic_ as they do at this very moment?"

She's stood in front of you, in nothing but knickers, while you rub the after-sun on her back and shoulders, but you pause just long enough to catch her eye in the mirror's reflection and roll your own at her.

"I will find your tits to be _fucking fantastic_, at any age," you say, kissing lightly her shoulder cap before turning away to retrieve your clothes off the bed.

She catches you, just by the wrist, and then turns towards you as you stumble forward. When your tongue touches your lips in anticipation of the kiss, you taste coconuts.

* * *

Everything in the city feels smaller, more contained, the way the buildings are all squat and pushed together and the streets narrowly built. You stroll them, the streets, with her hand in yours - window shop tacky gifts for Katie and James, and make fun of the pale-legged, gawking tourists who you refuse to admit look anything like yourselves. You take a day trip to one of the surrounding islands and spend the entire length of the ferry ride pressed against the ship's rusted white railings, Naomi wrapped around you from behind. It's an hour that feels more like time stood still. You close your eyes to the sea breeze, to the early morning sun, and kiss her, when she prompts you with a gentle nudge of her nose against your cheek.

You spend long hours in the hotel – between your time in the sun and nightfall – and it's just this fucking free fall of sex and abandon like you've never before had. Because just the idea of Naomi had started out like being blindfolded and spun about then told to walk a straight line. But over time, once you knew you truly had her, that she just as much had _you_, things settled and calmed and _normalised_ until you were eventually just another college couple, no longer a novelty. No longer something that makes you dizzy.

Even still, there has always been restrictions. There has always been Katie bartering for your time; there has always been coursework; there has always been curfews, and family dinners, and your _mum_. But there's never been this – which is time, uninterrupted.

Which is Naomi giggling in the shower, or breathing heavy during an afternoon nap while you read old favourites – Harper Lee and Fitzgerald and James Baldwin – just for the fuck of it.

Which is orgasms as loud as you please as often as you like without worry of meeting Gina's suspecting eye at the breakfast table.

Which is here – left alone with the girl you've craved for as long as has ever mattered – where there's nothing between anymore; and you didn't even think it was possible to feel closer to her than you already do.

* * *

"You're very drunk," you say, rather affectionately, once you've paid the tab and begin walking, unsteadily, down cobblestone.

"Sangria appears to be my Achilles heel then," she nearly slurs. And it's not even accurate, her admission, because you know at least a handful of other intoxicants that lend the same results.

You'd sat at an outside café right in the heart of the city, just off the square. Drank pitchers of sangria, ate fried plantains and mango chutney, shaded by large red-and-white umbrellas.

The sun continues to set and the building's brilliant colours dim with each passing minute until everything is muted – the violets, the blues, the yellows and reds – and all the vibrancy of the city quiets by degrees. Except for the music, its quick beats and thrumming guitars so alluring that even Naomi's vanishing inhibitions can't resist. So she's pulled you along, threaded you through the crowded streets until you're twirling towards her, laughing, giving in to everything. To her.

"Take me dancing," she says against your ear, and it's only above a whisper to account for the music, loud and thumping and tingling on your skin.

You kiss her against a wall – any wall, the _closest_ wall – that's smooth and cool and so very _Latin_ just by way of its colour and texture. But it's not hungry or urgent, this kiss. She just pulls you in by your waist, tilts her head down to reach you so easily, it suddenly hits you just how instinctual you've both become. Everything stretches on, the feel of her hands sliding up your sides and onto your back as you lean farther into her. The warmth of the night air and how it feels almost chilled in contrast to her mouth against yours. The smooth texture of her tongue and the way you can tell she's smiling with the slightest pull of her lips.

It's not until some loud and excitable Spanish echoes into the alley, that you pull back, a blush rapidly colouring your face when you look to see three Puerto Rican boys smiling and applauding and hollering like it's a bloody football match.

"Come on – let's get out of here." You pull Naomi along, out of the alley and past your audience even as she continues to drunkenly laugh and shout _'Gracias! Gracias!'_ over her shoulder when the boys refuse to stop cheering.

* * *

It's a beautiful thing, Naomi letting go. It'd been mesmerising from the very start – watching her give way, a little at a time. You've always been paying attention – always kept your eye on her to catch glimpses of these subtle changes - for as long as you can remember. And now, watching her with your back leant up against the bar counter, you're practically, fucking hypnotised.

She moves with abandon – in and out of sync with the music and it doesn't even fucking matter, for how happy she looks. She's a rather hot commodity, you think, in that nearly everyone on the dance floor has been on rotation to move with her. To dance with her. _Must be the blonde hair_, you muse. In a place filled with dark features and beautiful shades of brown and olive skin, Naomi's shock-blonde hair and light eyes create quite the contrast. _Perpetrators will always seek out the blondes as prey when taking hostages_, Jenna had warned, as part of her warm, farewell speech to you before catching your flight out of Bristol. You laugh at the memory of it - of your mum, who's never known how to say anything remotely nurturing without coming off like a total cunt.

You've got two beer bottles hooked between your fingers as you push off the counter and make your way back towards her, weaving through the drunk dancers, the wafts of cologne and sweat and alcohol. She opens her eyes slowly when you've pressed one of the cold bottles, beaded with perspiration, against her bare arm. And then everyone just shifts away as she pulls you closer, one hand at the back of your neck. And then _everything_ starts to fall away – the club, the band, the sweat along your brow and upper lip.

Nothing is left, nothing exists in front of you besides her when she smiles down to you, blue eyes lazily focused and hair all askew.

You remember the way she says, _'Let's stay here forever'_ and nothing else.

"Hey." You blink and Naomi's hair is pulled back and long. A very natural shade of auburn that suits her so much more than that shade of blonde you thought you'd never live without. Something creases her brow when she looks down at you and says, "Everything alright? You look a bit odd. Like you've just remembered you left the kettle on or something."

She sits down across from you and you swallow hard, look at her for the longest second before saying, "Yeah, something like that."

* * *

"How are things going?" she asks you, and suddenly everything once written across her face has righted itself so that you've no choice but to move on from it as well.

"You've stolen my line," you smile, settling into your seat and absently looking about the shop. The smell of coffee waters your mouth.

"The opening is soon, isn't it?"

"Too soon," you sigh. "But, it's going well – I'm quite ready to finish the intricate bits and see the finished product, you know? But that's just me – never really possessed the virtue of patience. But then, I suppose you already knew that."

When she smiles, you already know it's not completely genuine, which is not something Emily generally does: hold back. But then you've created all these assumptions about her – that she's still as open and honest as she was at twenty, being just one of them. So you make a note to stop referencing a life long-since gone, because there's a good chance that the girl with which you shared it, is gone as well.

"I've got tickets," you say by way of distraction, "for you and Rose. For the opening, I mean."

"Oh. _Really_?" Her shock actually does look genuine.

"Yeah, of course – I'll drop them by tomorrow."

"Naomi that's –" she doesn't finish her thought [again], and you've got your tongue pinched between your teeth to stop from berating her about this habit she's formed. "Thank you," is what she says instead.

"It's no problem. Rose had mentioned an interest in attending it at dinner, and it's not like I've got loads of friends here to take advantage of my free tickets."

"Oh, well, when you put it that way, I'm terribly honoured." It's sparked back into her eyes again, the very essence of everything _Emily - _the part you recognise as something wholly familiar - and you feel some reassurance that you've not got her pegged completely wrong.

"So, motherhood going alright for you?" You look up at her expectantly, folding your hands along the tabletop to keep from chipping away at your nail varnish.

"It's … an experience." She's smiling, but Emily's eyes give her away. Every time.

"What is it?" You swallow then, concentrate very hard on taking steady breaths because you'd very much like to handle this conversation – whatever it is – like a calm and rational human being.

"It's nothing." She shrugs and then actually does start chipping away at her own nails.

"Emily." She doesn't look at you, which has always been a sure sign that something too large is crowding her head and she's not yet worked out how to express it. "Come on," you prod, your voice so calmed and quiet you hardly recognise it as your own. "You're the one who called me – so let's have it."

"Rose has just been … off. A bit."

"Off?"

"The doctors spoke to us about it – postpartum, they call it – about there always being a possibility for it and how it would affect us." She shakes her head like she doesn't want to hear her own words. "But she wanted this _so badly_, I just – I never thought she'd react this way. I never actually thought there was ever any real chance of it happening, no matter what the fucking pamphlets said."

You know fuck-all about pregnancy and hormones and _babies_, in general, so you panic only slightly that this is why Emily called you. Because, fucking hell, doesn't she have Katie for this sort of thing? Doesn't she have _anyone_ besides you, who's only just resurfaced? Who's never known what to make of family, never understood it really – certainly not the way Emily had always made sense of it.

She runs the tips of her fingers – so fucking quickly – under her eyes, one and then the next, and keeps them cast down. Keeps them from you. And then you take a deep breath, erasing every panic-stricken nerve in your body. Because it's obvious then, that the thing you do know, the thing you've _always_ known, is how to care for Emily when she's upset.

"Are you getting much sleep?"

Her laugh is rough, the way it just sort of chokes out and lands on the table. "Not hardly."

"Remember that weekend after your exams when you took the train after staying up all night?" She looks up at you then, surprised maybe that you've brought it up. Surprised maybe that you remember it at all. "When you got in you were _convinced_ I wasn't happy to see you. You were absolutely _certain_ I had no interest in you being there – raged in my flat like a fucking madwoman for hours. And I ended up paying for the dent in wall where you threw my textbook, thank you."

"One of our finest rows," she smiles proudly even though the corners of her eyes are still a bit damp. Her fingers have stilled against the table, flecks of blue varnish scattered around them.

"Mmmm," you hum, smiling in return.

"Sorry – about the wall."

"The sodding wall isn't the point, Emily," you say with an exasperated headshake. "You're exhausted, and no doubt Rose is as well – I'm sure it's not as grim as it seems at the moment. Lack of sleep and all, yeah?"

She nods, like she believes you. Like she _wants_ to believe you, at the very least.

"You're right – I've overreacted and Lewis is just, he's just fucking wonderful."

"I'm sure Rose would agree."

"Yes," she says with a bit more conviction. "Yes, of course she does. I'm sorry –" she struggles, starts again with her nails until your hand reaches out [of its own volition or something], and you touch just the tips of your fingers to hers. "I'm sorry for making things seem worse – for blowing things out of proportion and for –"

"The wall?" You can feel your eyebrow arch even as touch of pink colours the top of her ear – you can see just the one where its peeked out from behind her hair. And you think maybe it's okay to remember old times. Maybe it's okay to acknowledge some of the life you've outgrown. Maybe it's not so bad if it results in Emily's timid smile and embarrassed flush.

"That too," she says and then moves her hands to her lap, as if she's just remembered they'd been touching yours in the first place.

The sounds of the shop fill in the gaps between you: the hiss of a cappuccino maker, the grinding of coffee beans, random bits of conversation that float past you.

"Can I ask you something?"

She looks warily at you before slowly allowing. "Sure."

"Has your sister not come round at all since Lewis was born? It's not been more than a few weeks, I guess, but it's just you've not mentioned her. I'm a little surprised she's not here, actually."

Emily looks at you a little curiously, a smile curling to her lips and the worry that once creased her features is gone completely. _Haven't lost my touch then_, you think.

"What is it?" you ask, fiddle the gold ring on your middle finger when she's still just sat there.

"I just don't think I'll ever get used to you asking after Katie is all."

"It's not like we _never_ got on – we found our truce," you argue, but Emily's arched eyebrow prompts you to amend, "_Eventually_. So, go on then, where is she hiding herself these days?"

Emily leans back into her chair, pushes both hands through her hair and you strain to keep your eyes from drifting towards her neck and shoulders, bared entirely if not for her simple, grey vest top.

"How much time have you got?"

* * *

** Been a bit of an updating maniac with this piece while, admittedly, neglecting IBTS and our dearest KFF story, but I'm not feeling exceptionally inspired by either of those at the moment & just wanted to assure anyone who's apt to raise pitchforks about it [ahem, **Pita**] that I've not abandoned them forever. Just for now.


	7. Chapter 7

On the night of the opening you get incredibly smashed and end up sleeping with Effy.

Or, well, _on_ Effy anyway.

You'd drank until dawn, spent a great deal of time seriously contemplating doing leg races down the Millennium Bridge, then passed out somewhere between a cab ride and Effy's lush, sixteenth-story loft. Which is when you'd come to, your head propped on her rail-thin stomach and your bodies, still wrapped in lavish party dresses, splayed out across her massive bed.

Effy doesn't stir when you lift your head, just continues to lie flat and so unnervingly still your senses – still fucking blurred to hell – start to panic enough that you've moved your ear towards her mouth, waiting to feel her breathe.

"Naomi."

You leap back with such force a sharp pain rockets through your skull, forcing your eyes to shut tightly, and your hands clutch at the bed covers.

"_Christ_, you fucking scared me."

"Me? You're the one fucking hovering over me like a concerned nurse."

"My apologies," you drone, lying back against the bed, opposite her so that your head is near her ankles. "I thought you'd passed on."

"Passed on? From chardonnay and jaeger bombs? Fuck, Naomi – you really haven't a clue about my upbringing, have you?" Effy's voice sounds hoarse and her laughter scratches out, even as she reaches over to grab a fag from her pack on the nightstand.

"I feel like shit. No, like worse than shit – what's worse than shit?"

She doesn't miss a beat, she never did. "Emily in a black cocktail dress with a gorgeous blonde on her arm that isn't you?"

You don't even think you can manage a response, not a good one anyway. Still, it feels less like utter defeat when you've propped up on both elbows and scowl at her, "Give me one of those, fucking tosser."

She throws you the pack and the matches, leans back against her pillows and smokes like a movie star.

* * *

Your stay in London is ticking away so that when your phone rings in the middle of the day – one afternoon, a few days after the opening when you'd adjusted again to the quiet – it feels like a time bomb detonating.

The call, you've been expecting; the context comes like a fucking left hook.

Her voice, frantic and nearly unrecognisable, is drowned out almost entirely by the sound of an infant crying – no, _wailing_. Lewis' cries sound torturous – like someone's held his tiny, new-born feet against hot iron.

"Hi – hi, I'm sorry," are the words you can make out through the receiver, pressing it harder to your ear even though it raises the decibel of baby screams noticeably. "Can you – I mean, did I catch you at a bad time?"

"Emily, what the fuck is going on – are you, is Lewis okay?"

"I can't get him to stop – I just, fuck, I don't know what to do."

You're moving about the room now, just to feel more productive by _movement, _which is better than reclining in the hotel bed, listening to Emily completely lose her shit.

The pacing seems to help then, because you remember to ask, "Where's Rose?"

"Work. School. I mean, she went back to teach this week and yesterday was fine, but today – the nanny's not answering and I just, I don't know what to do, Naomi. I don't know what to do."

You hear it then, the way Emily's sobs fall into her son's, overpowered by his impressive, fucking lung capacity, but distinct all the same.

"Yeah, alright – Emily, it's alright. You need to calm down, yeah?"

"Can you just –"

And you're already grabbing your bag, shoving your one free arm into a cardigan and looking for your shoes when you cut in, "Yeah, I'm on my way."

* * *

Emily tells you not to knock – in the off-chance she's gotten Lewis to settle down in the time it'll take you to get there – and there's this moment of hesitation as your hand lingers on the front door. You're just not sure it has anything to do with entering the flat unannounced.

But you can hear the screaming from outside so you push through and head into the sitting room where Emily's pacing, cradling this terribly disruptive creature in her arms. She doesn't stop moving once she sees you, just pauses mid step and starts bouncing in one spot, shaking her head and clamping down hard on her lips.

So you're walking towards her – a fucking magnetic draw or something because you've got no real idea what to do once you've reached her – and assessing her in close contact is worse than you'd anticipated. Tired, watery eyes. Mussed, unkempt hair. Wrinkled sleep clothes, damp with spit and baby sick. She looks a beautiful, fucking wreck.

"Here," you say, and you've not held a baby in years. Let alone an unhappy one, screaming for his life. Let alone fucking _Lewis_, who already mirrors Rose so eerily you almost balk and look away.

But she hands him over and then he's in your clutches, with his tiny, balled fists, red, angry face, and cavernous mouth.

"Hey, whoa – alright then. Alright," you say first to Lewis and then look up to Emily. "I assume you've tried to bottle him?"

"He won't take more than a few pulls."

"Right. Nappy?"

"Dry as a bone – I've checked roughly sixteen times in the past thirty minutes."

"Have you checked him for fever?"

"His temp's normal – I mean, he feels warm, but I think it's from all the bloody crying."

"How long has he been at it, and how the _fuck_ has he not lost steam yet?"

"I've lost track – an hour? I don't know," Emily sighs, runs her hands over her face and through her hair and you watch her for a moment longer than you should before Lewis screams out again.

"I'm just going to walk around a bit," you say, bouncing him in your arms, this thing that weighs less than your luggage. "You should sit – try to calm down, yeah? I think they can sense when you're worked up." Did you read that somewhere? Or is it just lingering words of wisdom from your mum during that time in your life when your house often resembled a fucking nursery?

It doesn't much matter if there's any truth to it because Emily will likely believe _anything_ at this point, and slumps into the sofa on command.

You walk and bounce. Walk and bounce. Turning corners into rooms and down corridors, with no regard for privacy or decorum – Emily's urgent plea for your help has excused all of that. And Lewis doesn't calm, not immediately, but his volume has lessened by the time you reach the master bedroom. It's not even closed off, like it might be during a gathering – a dinner party, perhaps. So you just waltz in, quite literally gliding along, taking these long strides into the room because Lewis seems to appreciate the kind of rhythm your long legs afford.

Everything in it is fairly typical – nothing standing out the way you'd expected to walk in and think, _'Oh yes, Emily sleeps here.' _You're not even sure what to make of it, the fairly ordinary décor and impossibly drab furnishings – which is when you realise you're able to consider them at all, in the _quiet_ of the room. So you spin slowly until the reflection in the mirror is your back, head turned to see Lewis against your shoulder, eyes closed.

"Shit," you say without thinking, and then cringe that the sound of your voice, that the vibrations of it along your shoulder might be enough to wake him.

When you pad lightly out of the room and back down the corridor, Emily's waiting at the doorway to the sitting room, possibly having just registered the silence herself.

Her disbelief is so obvious you'd be offended if you weren't also incredibly, fucking full of yourself at the moment.

"Oh my _god_," she half-mouths, half-whispers.

"Yeah, I know. Not bad for a novice, ey?"

She's crept over to your side, the shoulder where Lewis is asleep, and places a hand on your arm, just below where Lewis' tiny fingers hang limp. You let her stay like this – like whatever closeness this is, this comfort you're sharing by just being in proximity with each other, is allowable for now – like it's okay, because of the sleeping baby. But then you look at _her_, instead of Lewis, and clear your throat to clear the air.

"You should sleep." She looks up at you, after you've already looked back to Lewis' head and then the window. "While he sleeps, you know, get some sleep yourself."

"No, I couldn't –"

"You look like shit, Ems." It's easier to look at her then, once you've insulted her.

"Thanks."

"I'm just saying, you'd be surprised what a couple of hours can do for you. I imagine with this fucking siren in your room, you've not gotten proper sleep in a while, yeah?"

"You're the baby expert now, are you?" She crosses her arms and gives you a look you'd rather not face head-on, but at least she's finally moved her hand.

"_Clearly_," you say, cutting your eyes to the baby _asleep_ _in your arms_.

"I'm going to make you some tea."

"Emily," you're warning her, and the sound of your voice is something so haunting you can't even say anything else.

And she turns, partway to the kitchen, to look at you, expressionless for a full seven seconds.

"I'm making you tea," she then smiles, challenging whatever the _fuck_ you'd just asserted with raised eyebrows, but conceding, "and then I'll lie down for a bit."

* * *

You've somehow maneuvered your way onto the sofa and shifted Lewis so that he's more-or-less cradled into the nook of your elbow, along your stomach, without disturbing him. And you're not really able to lean forward to pick up your tea from the coffee table so it's just been sat there, cooling, until Emily notices you eyeing it and sits up to hand it to you.

"Thanks," you smile when you've had your first sip.

"Are you sure I can't take him?" she asks, not settling back into her corner of the sofa as _you thought_ had been silently agreed upon as an appropriate length of space between you, but crouching closer on the middle cushion instead.

"You're meant to be sleeping – besides, if we jostle him and he wakes, all my hard work will be in vain."

She reaches over for your cup once you've taken another sip, sets it back on the table, then rests her head against the back sofa cushions. "Fair enough."

It's not fair. Not any of it.

"It's good tea," you say when you've not managed to think of anything more profound since she's refused to move back to the far corner.

"Tetley," she says, by way of an answer.

"I should _fucking_ hope so." And you're not even really joking, but Emily laughs anyway so you watch her and smile in return.

"It's not like they're _all_ shit. I tried a delicious one the other day from P –"

"So help me god, if you're about to say the tea company that shall not be named, Emily, I cannot be held responsible if my ranting wakes this child."

"Always the theatrics," she smiles and reaches out a hand where you think she might squeeze your elbow but touches a light finger to Lewis' hand instead.

"It's called brand loyalty. It's called having _class_."

"It's called having a _mum_ who thought that P –"

You stop her with a well-practiced look and somehow your hand finds its way to her knee. It's a cautionary touch – one that she doesn't even bother looking at – but it feels like you've reclaimed something, unintentionally, just the same.

Emily just rolls her eyes – looks no more affected by the fact that your hand was just resting on her knee than if you'd scratched your own ear – and starts again, "Who thought that '_the tea company that shall not be named_' were co-conspirators in some mad, Manchester plot to brainwash the better part of England with communism."

"Yeah, and?"

"_Tea_ laced with _communism_?"

You've wound her up, which in turn, makes you relax into a musing grin.

"Oddly enough, not even one of her most bizarre theories, that." You look down to Lewis as you say it, as you think about your dear, old mum and the absolute insanity that was your upbringing.

You think about how she'd shit to see you now, cradling a baby and watching him sleep. How she'd not even be moved by it, but more likely fucking irate that you'd refused to help her all those years – with all those nameless babies – when you'd secretly [and unknowingly] been harbouring this talent for soothing them, apparently.

"It's far too easy, isn't it?"

The sound of her voice is quiet, far too quiet for how fucking close she's still sat, but it breaks your train of thought, and you look up to see her watching _you_ instead of Lewis. You try to read her expression for quick seconds, studying different features that used to be like bloody tells: the flicker of her left eyebrow; the curve in the corners of her mouth; the darting patterns of her eyes. You'd so effortlessly committed them all to memory.

_It's about the baby_, you think. _Just say something about the _sodding_ baby_.

"Watching him? Yeah," you say and actually do look back to him because what you're saying is mostly true. "He's really lovely."

"With you," Emily clarifies then pushes back – her feet flat against your thigh because it's not like her sofa is _huge_ or anything – readjusting until she's laid down again. "It's far too easy with you."

You're trying to heed your own advice – keep fucking _calm_ – because if there's any truth to it, then the way your pulse is hammering away will have Lewis awake in no time.

"What's that?" you ask, like a sodding masochist, because the absolute _last_ thing either of you need right now is for Emily – sleep-deprived and operating on fumes – to keep talking.

She curls onto her side then, reaches up for a throw on the back of the sofa and pulls it over herself. You wait, and watch for her to wrap a corner around her hands and tuck them beneath her chin. When she does, you bite hard on the skin inside your cheek.

"Falling into old habits." Her eyes droop, but she looks at you like she means it, like she's checking to be sure you've heard it. And well, she may as well have shouted it through a fucking bullhorn for how much your ears are currently ringing.

* * *

Emily sleeps. You shift a bit at some point, just so that your back doesn't cramp into knots completely, and end up disturbing Lewis' nap for just one moment where he looks at you with these incredibly captivating eyes – your breath held for what feels like longer than should be humanly possible – then closes them again, his arms flopping back onto his stomach.

You watch the clock – stopping to ponder, every other minute, on a laundry list of things including, but not limited to:

How long you should let Emily sleep [considering that if you didn't _physically_ wake her, she could likely sleep for several, consecutive days]

How long six week old babies sleep, and if, upon waking, they are equally as demonically-charged as they are prior to sleep

At what point would a uni professor – such as Rose – return home from work [you're not even sure she's back full-time, and anyway haven't a bastard clue what a part-time schedule looks like because Emily has never actually explained her work schedule to you and instead just keeps popping up randomly]

And a host of other things – mostly about Emily and why she feels it's okay to say things about 'old habits' – all too muddled to sort out properly at the moment.

* * *

When it's gone about an hour, another thought strikes you and this one being far lighter than the rest, you decide to act on it. So very carefully, you reach into your back pocket, retrieving your mobile. It takes a few tries but in the end, you've captured the photo [yourself, smiling like a git, and Lewis in your lap] and have to bite back laughter as it's sent off. You're back to watching the clock – because it's a safer option than your first choice, which is a sleeping Emily – and before a full minute passes, you feel the tickling buzz of a new text message.

Classically, even Effy's written replies sound bored and detached.

_The fuck_

Your thumb moves to reply even as Emily shifts a bit on the sofa.

_At Ems – fill you in later at yours?_

She first responds helpfully: _Will clear stock from several off-licence in prep_

Then, in true form: _Tell Ems I said hello_

* * *

It's a relief that Emily stirs awake on her own because you hadn't really formulated a great plan for doing it yourself – one that didn't involve _touching_ her, at least.

And she'd only slept for maybe an hour-and-a-half, not nearly long enough to have any effect on her voice. Except that of course if fucking does, because you're not that fortunate to have avoided the sound of Emily's voice upon waking and the way that first word always scratches out.

"Hi."

She's not gotten any more profound then, in so many years, but that's hardly the fucking point. Because _what_ she says has always paled so heavily in comparison to the _way_ she says it.

"You slept." _Well fucking observant_, you think.

"Yeah – how long?" She's stretching, rubbing at one eye and trying to find the clock on the wall opposite.

"Over an hour."

"He should eat," she says, running her hands through her hair and sitting up.

It's the first thing you think when she's sat next to you again, legs criss-crossed, and checking in on Lewis. So you say, "You look better – less tired, less –"

"Like shit?" she finishes with a smirk.

You look at her – take in everything that you can, everything that you _shouldn't_ – because these moments are fleeting. Your time is nearly up, and you've actually no real idea how you're meant to go without seeing her again.

"Definitely," you say, so softly she'd have a be a fucking mong not to register its implications. And, well, she's _not_, so when she's looking away and changing the subject, it's no surprise.

"I'll get his bottle ready if you don't mind sitting with him for another few minutes."

The sarcasm that usually fuels your responses is nowhere to be found and instead you're just saying, "Sure," and watching her exit into the kitchen.

You've passed him over to Emily without much fuss – he seems less likely to shatter glass anyway – and then just sit watching them. It's not fair to say you're watching _her_, because it's the pair of them that's got you entranced. It's just this lovely image you'll likely never forget because it's the sweetest memories of Emily that sting the most.

"This is it then?"

You're sat back on the sofa, on the side where she slept, while Emily holds Lewis in an over-stuffed arm chair near the window. The room has been quiet for several minutes, just the suckling sounds of a baby feeding, the hum of the fridge.

When she looks at you without saying anything, you know you've said it out loud – a fragment of this thought that's been cramping your head and tangling your logic. What's worse, is she knows there's more to it and she won't even ask what it is because just a _look_ from Emily has always been enough to get you talking.

You _feel_ yourself saying, "This is the life we were meant to have – the one I left behind."

But then you _hear_ yourself say, "Time's up." Because the front door unlatches, and the shuffling of bags and clicking of heels can only mean one thing.

"We're in here," Emily calls out, still watching you, and in seconds you're met with Rose's hazel eyes and warm smile.

"Hello," you say, standing from the sofa.

"Ah, the cavalry," she sighs, squeezing lightly to your upper arm and smiling back to Emily.

You didn't know Emily had told her you were here, let alone that you'd come to save the day.

"Just dumb luck," you say, brushing off her compliment.

She moves towards Emily, and when she kisses her forehead, you watch Emily close her eyes just before closing your own.

"So, I'll be off then," you're saying, stepping back at least three paces towards the doorway before Rose turns to you.

"I'll walk you out."

"Thank you for your help, Naomi. I couldn't have –" Emily starts.

"You'll learn," you tell her. You say it with confidence. It's something you know first-hand.

At the front door, you're slipping back into your shoes and Rose reaches for the door handle and then just stops to watch you. It's so unnerving, it takes three bloody attempts to get your right heel into the ratty trainers you refuse to tie and untie.

"It's odd," she starts, and it could go fucking _anywhere_ from here, but she doesn't keep you in suspense long before saying, "I hadn't pegged you as someone who harbours regrets."

It'd be such a conniving thing to say if it were anyone else who'd said it. Like some smarmy antagonist in a teen drama on BBC3. But Rose looks and sounds like the least contemptuous person you've ever met, save Emily perhaps. And even she has her dark side. She just honestly looks contemplative as she says it, and looks to you with a meek smile.

In another three days you'll be gone. You'll be back to a life you've created without all this – without _her_. And even as you think it, you look back towards the sitting room and smile. It's a sad smile and not one that you mind Rose observing because you quite like her. And you think it'd be so fucked up to try and pull one over, to lie to her.

So you look back to meet her eyes with this kind of raw honesty and tell her, "Just the one."

* * *

**Author's Note:** Sorry, couldn't help myself with the Effy scare at the start. Just want to make certain you're all still paying attention. I'll probably lose my job if I don't stop writing so much fic and get back to work so I'm not sure I'll continue to have the time to update so frequently, but I do always try. Hoping this [much] longer update will hold us over until I can get another up. The good news is, I know exactly where this train is headed so it's just a matter of putting it to the page. Sounds easy enough, yeah? Love your reviews, loving your excitement about this story, basically loving that a strong obsession for Naomily still exists after all this time because it makes me feel less alone. Less lonely.

**naomilyfan** - you light up my life. and **fookyeah** - your metaphors are everything.


	8. Chapter 8

**Author's** **Note**: All your theories on Rose have been so highly entertaining, I've loved reading them all. And you've all been quite patient [mostly]. But now, it's time for the reveal. So let's all hold hands through catflaps now, because this next bit isn't going to be any sort of fun. Deep breath. Here we go.

* * *

Effy takes the piss the very second your foot is in the door. And, actually, there's an odd comfort in that.

"How'd you like a whiskey sour, _mummy_?"

"Fuck off, Eff."

"What about a wine spritzer?"

She's leant against the breakfast counter, chin held innocently in her hands when you sling your bag onto a stool and flip her off.

"Vodka then?"

"In buckets," you say, slumping into a seat at the counter. You're sat across from her then, her eyes bright and reflecting – like amusement shadowed by intrigue.

Effy's never been short on substances, and though she's clearly changed – matured at approximately the same rate as you, and discovered clothing that covers a bit more of her arse – you're infinitely grateful that her ability to facilitate your desire to get pissed hasn't been lost in the process.

* * *

"So you're in love with her," she poses [at some point later] in her trademark, multi-faceted speak that's neither questioning nor statement of fact but somehow both.

She's got an outdoor terrace that puts Emily's to shame, and you've been out there, enjoying the warmth and the waning sun and the city view, for hours. You pause, a lit match partway to the tip of your fag, and look up to meet her eyes – unrelenting and invasive as ever.

It's a handful of seconds later, once you've finished the task at hand, inhaled a long drag of nicotine and breathe out long and slow. There's never been a rush with Effy – never a real hurry to either engage or respond. So you sit with it, her question. Try to make it sound less accusatory in your head. Try to push away images of Emily from earlier in the day. From earlier in your _life_. But they're like stains on white cloth – though a concerted effort will make them fade, a memory of them will always linger.

"I can't be," you say, and it could be something you've said in a quiet room by yourself, for how little it matters that Effy's there to hear it.

"The thing is," Effy says, just after pulling a long drag off her own fag, "you're both essentially fucked at any point you find you're not with each other."

"Cheers," you smile, exhaling a plume of smoke that swirls with hers. "That's well comforting."

She shrugs, leaning back into the slope of her lounge chair. And you look at her and wonder if she knows just how infuriating it is to be mates with someone who's so unapologetically brazen in addition to being so fucking gorgeous without even trying.

"And, anyway, that's not true. Emily has Rose and Lewis and her education, her _success_ – this is everything she's wanted since we were sixteen. So I'd say she's pretty far from fucked."

"You're shit at lying, Naomi. Even when it's to yourself."

"I'm not –"

"Emily's got this life – the wife, the kid, the bloody _snooze_ of a flat – by way of circumstance. And I've no doubt she's found love and happiness in all that because she's not like me. She's not like you – she can't just tread water in misery. It wouldn't just consume her, it'd fucking _drown_ her."

She stands up, taking your drink that's gone empty when you weren't looking. You're about the same height – you and Effy – except you've got to crane your neck just to look up at her because she's fucking towering over you from this angle.

"Emily's got all these _things_, Naomi, but they're just filling gaps, yeah? Just taking up space – like fucking placeholders. Because you and I both know, the only thing Emily Fitch has ever wanted since she was sixteen, is you."

* * *

It's the following evening when you're sat in the hotel bed, leant up against every pillow provided on the king size bed [plus two others you'd requested from the concierge], and updating your weekly schedule for your return to New York. _Home_, you remind yourself, your return _home_. You've got the laptop propped on your legs, a tablet on the bed beside you, and use your thumb to scroll through your mobile. _Fucking_ _naive_, you think, that you'd ever considered your mum to be the cliché.

Your flight leaves Sunday and by Monday you'll be back to it – back to a routine that doesn't include Effy or London or _Emily_, for fuck's sake, a girl who's significance you'd essentially been trying to lessen _gradually_ for over ten years.

There are text messages that you'll delete [eventually] and sensory memories of this trip – of _her_ – that are bound to fade. You know it's true, because you've fucking survived it once before – being without her – and survival is something learnt, you think. Fuck instinct. Fuck the fittest and the evolution of their survival. Nothing about the past decade feels innate. It feels like something in which you've been trained. In which you've trained yourself. And anyways, you've always been a good student.

You're scrolling those text messages, absently, when the phone next to the bed goes. And at first you just look at it because in well over four weeks it's never rang. Because it's not as if the front desk is terribly nagging, and you've not given out your room number to anyone other than Effy, who's texted you all six times she's been by while on the lift, having already forgotten it.

"Hello?"

"Good evening, Ms Campbell. We apologise for any disturbance."

"No, uh, no disturbance. No problem."

"There's a woman here at the desk asking for you – an Emily Fitch?"

_Fucking Christ_.

"Oh. Right," you're answering, flicking through screens on your mobile because surely you've missed a call, an alert of some sort, before Emily would resort to just showing up and ringing you via the fucking concierge. "I'll be right down then," you say, having found fuck-all in your phone anyway.

"Would you like me to send her up, Ms Campbell? She says she doesn't want to trouble you."

"Fucking rich that," you mumble, having already swung your legs off the bed.

"I'm sorry?"

"Nothing – yeah, um, send her up. Thanks."

* * *

It's worse than a punch in the gut, it's like a fucking knife wound.

"Jesus _Christ_!"

"Hi."

"_Jesus Christ_ – what the – what the _fuck_?"

"It's not – I mean, it doesn't –" she doesn't say more, _can't_ say more, before crumbling in front of you. Shaky chin and wracked sobs – a perfect replica of some girl you once reduced to this very thing some hundred years ago.

You're pulling her into the room, a touch that's barely there on the top of her shoulder, as her hand in a loose fist rests just below her cheek bone, the one that's split. The one that's reddened and coloured with short smears of dried blood where Emily's tried to clean it up with the sleeve of her top.

"What happened? Where have you been? Have you called Rose? Of course, we've got to fucking call Rose – she'll come get you, yeah? She'll need to know." You nod to yourself, walk ahead of Emily farther into the room, then turn to her and ask, "Where were you – someone got to you on the street? Fuck, this city."

They say going into shock will either turn you stoic or make you ramble like a total nutter. And, well, you never were one to keep your mouth shut.

"Naomi." It's more of a whimper, Emily's eyes still wet with fresh tears. She sits on the bed, just the edge. Just the spot where you'd been sat minutes earlier. "It's my fault really."

You're just staring at her like she's gone mental. Like _you've_ gone mental and conjured up this entire illusion of Emily, sat before you, because nothing's making any sense.

She attempts a smile that turns your stomach, and points to the mark on her face. "I gave her the ring."

It's not so easy to swallow when your mouth's gone dry, but you work at it enough to ask, "Rose?" and sit beside her when it feels your knees might well give out at any moment.

"I don't want to talk about it. I just didn't – I just had to get out of there. But I can't –"

"Emily."

"_Please_, Naomi."

There's a kind of silence you can hear – one that's so still, it's nearly deafening. It sounds like this for long minutes where you're both just sat at slight angles on the mattress edge, your knees barely touching, and eyes cast down towards some fixed point on the floor.

"Why did you come here?" It comes out quietly, just barely heard over the loud, rapid thumping of blood pumping in your ears.

You've been thinking it since the call and certainly since you'd swung open the door to see her standing there, and it's the only thing that sounds louder than the quiet that's crowding the room.

"I'm sorry."

"I'm not mad, Em, I just – I'm pretty confident you've got loads of friends. People you could have contacted." You look up to see her nodding, minutely, pinching the top of her lip against the bottom over and over. "Why here?"

You wait for a response, trying desperately not to hold your breath, but when she says nothing and keeps blinking towards the her feet you finally say, "Does it hurt? Should we go to the hospit –"

"No," she answers quite quickly then. "I don't want that. It's not bad."

You're just picturing it in your head, on this fucking loop, but you can't even conjure a good enough visual because the idea that Rose would ever – and that's as far as you get before blinking hard and starting again.

"I'll see if I have anything – pills or something – you should put ice on it at least." You clear your throat and stand to walk about, search your things for pills that aren't there. Fill a towel with ice perhaps. Do something, _anything_, that feels more productive than sitting next to her. "Shit – ice is just down the hall." You grab for the small pail off the desk – a surface you've not once used for actual work and only twice found it useful when mixing drinks for Effy and yourself one late night after drinks with the curators – and start for the door. "I'll just be a tick, okay?"

She looks up at you when you're reaching out for the door handle, and you think she might just say 'thanks' or 'okay,' but then Emily never did say what people expected of her. And only because you're leant up against the door do you manage not to fall over or anything when she says, "I just thought it would feel, you know, safe. I came here because I – I just wanted to feel safe."

And Emily's suddenly perfectly capable of holding your eye like you haven't just spent the past ten minutes studiously avoiding this type of contact. So you're not quite certain whether or not you manage to respond before you've pulled open the door and stepped out into the corridor with shaky limbs.

"Pick up, pick up, pick up," you chant into your mobile until she does, at which point you wait barely a breath before saying, "How fast can you get here?"

"Miss me?"

"Also, bring drugs – not like hallucinogens or fucking speed or anything but, like, pills. For pain, you've got those, right?"

"Are you alright?" It's about as concerned a tone you've ever heard from her.

And you're not alright, for obvious reasons, but then you stop pacing up and down the corridor and stop to lean your shoulder against the wall because your chest is tightening a bit, and yeah, this is probably what panic feels like.

* * *

When Effy gets there she approaches Emily silently, her movements soft and fluid as she walks toward the bed, then gently cups her face and tilts it up just so. Emily's hand falls to her lap, the one that's got the towel-wrapped ice held in place, and then Effy smoothes her thumb on the skin just below the cut. Emily watches Effy, fucking _intently_, for a reaction – her eyes just darting back and forth while Effy assesses for permanent damage or something; and you just watch her, Emily, and chew helplessly on your bottom lip.

After a second or two Effy just says, "Take a couple of these."

"What are they?" Emily asks once Effy's deposited two, small white pills into her palm. "They're not going to, like –"

"Fuck you up?" Effy finishes with a slight curve to her lips. "It's not Gobbler's End, is it?" And Emily smiles a bit at that. "They're just for pain. I mean, unless you've got plans to operate heavy machinery within the next few hours, they'll mostly just help you sleep."

"Oh, well –"

"Eff," you've said only after realising you're not sure what to say next.

And then she just looks between the two of you like she couldn't be more tired _and_ amused and says, "Sorry, was that not the plan? For you to lie down for a bit and rest?" She looks to Emily, who's mouth is still just gaping open by a small amount. Then turns to you and smiles in a way that is so reminiscent of the cunt she was at seventeen to boys like Cook and Freddie, and says, "Naomi was a bit unclear on the details."

"It's fine." You'll kill her, later. When there are less witnesses.

"No, I'll go." Emily moves to stand but Effy's fully blocking her without acknowledgement.

"No, you'll stay," you say, and you're practically fucking insistent at this point.

"You're sure?" She looks over at you – sort of frozen partway between standing and sitting – and you just shrug for good measure.

"No, but that's never stopped me before."

* * *

You're stood with Effy in the corridor just outside your room having an argument in these ridiculously emotive whispers, strained for how you're attempting to fight with her without raising your voice.

"What exactly is your fucking plan? Storming the castle?"

"I'm not just going to fucking _sit_ here and do nothing."

"Christ, Naomi, you sitting here with her is so obviously the _opposite_ of doing nothing."

"Well it doesn't fucking feel like it." You cross your arms, high over your chest, and look off to keep from looking straight at her.

She props a foot against the wall behind her. It looks odd because she's not got a lit fag between her fingers that dangle at her side.

"What do you want to do – take her out behind the rubbish bins and have a go at her face with your fists? Hasn't anyone ever told you, you can't fight fire with fire?"

"No," your eyes cut back to her angrily, "of fucking course not. I just want –"

"What _do_ you want? What is it that you _want_ exactly?"

The words are so heavily loaded you can actually feel the _weight_ of them hanging off of you like wet cloths.

"I leave in two days, Eff," you answer quietly, and then shrug when you know the answer is the truth even if only part of it. "I just want to know she's going to be okay."

She looks at you – just fucking watches you for a few more beats, like a challenge to spill all of it – then pushes herself off the wall.

"Go get her mobile."

"What the fuck for?"

And she just lifts one eyebrow slightly in response.

"Am I to just demand it from her with no explanation then?"

"She set it on the bedside table before lying down, and there's a good chance she's already passed out – if her lack of tolerance for prescription pills in sixth form is any indication – so, no, I don't suspect you'll need to _explain_ anything."

Partly, your grateful to find Emily actually is asleep, rolled onto her side and facing away from the door as you approach. Partly, you find it fucking irritating that Effy is still right about _everything_.

You let the door click shut very slowly behind you then walk the few paces down the wide corridor towards Effy, who's waiting with her hand out for the mobile your carrying. You watch her navigate the screen with an uneasy interest because you've got no real clue what she's planning, but since she's got the confidence of a trained criminal who's essentially _breaking-and-entering_ into Emily's phone, you try to relax taking deep breaths.

When she puts the phone to her ear, Effy's face remains neutral for a pause then breaks into something wickedly amused when she croons, "Katie fucking Fitch."

* * *

You sit with Emily. There's a chair in your room meant for reading so you've angled it towards the bed, opposite the side where she's sleeping [_your_ side, technically, though you haven't had to claim sides of a bed in years] so you can watch her. When you wake up, you can't pick up your head without wincing because it's fallen at this horrible angle; and the bottoms of your feet start to tingle where they've lost circulation from the awkward positioning of sleeping in a fucking reading chair. Squinting, rubbing your eyes, and feeling like basic shit, you pull your mobile off the desk beside you and check the time. Somewhat hesitantly, you then check Emily's phone which has, for hours, been silently filling up with missed calls and countless messages. All from Rose. All gone unanswered.

It's some time before dawn, when the black, night sky is fading to pale greys, and you get up to stretch, finding that your movements – however subtle and quiet – have stirred Emily from sleep.

Her eyes seem unfocused and confused at the bed linens, at the bed itself no doubt, until she sees you standing across this dimly lit, unfamiliar room.

"What's the time?"

"It's early – you should sleep more," and then feeling somewhat less sure, "if you want."

"Where's Effy?"

"Gone home hours ago."

Emily shifts in the bed, reaches up very tentatively and places a few fingers to her face. "Did you sleep?" she asks, frowning from the contact against her skin.

"Yeah, a bit." You've always had shit timing when it comes to brutal honesty so you just blurt out after a few seconds of silence, "We called Katie." Emily's eyes look somewhere between shocked and terrified so you just clear your throat, plough on. "She's on a flight first thing tomorrow morning – or, well, actually _this_ morning."

She spots her mobile then, on the desk, sat beside your own.

"So you drugged me and then stole my fucking _phone_?"

"What? No!"

"Can I have it please." She's sat up now, hand outstretched, and anger all over her face.

"She's called. Loads," you sigh, handing it over. Emily looks down, starts scrolling through her phone without responding. "What about Lewis?"

"I called her mum. Told her to go to the flat." She doesn't look up.

"You can't be angry."

"Sure as fuck I can," she snaps, throwing the phone onto the bed. "Katie's _my_ sister, she's _my_ fucking family and you had no right –"

"No, Emily, _you_ had no right." You've said it then, and there's no going back so you just take a long, shaky breath and keep at it. "You can't do this anymore – you can't keep coming to me, like this."

"What the fuck does that mean?"

"We don't have the rights to each other – not the rights to do this, to be here like this where you're broken or hurt and I'm meant to put things back together – not anymore, Emily. Not in a long, fucking time."

"Naomi, you're leaving in less than 48 hours. Can't imagine I'll be showing up unannounced after that." Her voice is even, measured. Less emotional and less enraged. Just _less_.

"I can't just leave without knowing you'll be okay. I can't just hop on a plane, worrying that you'll go back to her – that this could happen again – with no one to look out for you."

"So you called Katie," she pieces together and you nod.

"I don't know why we've run into each other – I can't – I haven't been able to make any sense of it," you're shaking your head, sitting back into the chair when your first instinct is to sit on the bed. And you feel the emotion building, threatening to tremor your voice. "But, it should never have gotten to this. I should've stopped it long before it came to this."

"Stopped what?" Emily's voice is unsteady too, the way it sounds caught near the back of her throat.

"It's not been right, this." You look up at her, sadly move your hand to gesture between the two of you. "_This_."

"It's not been _anything_." And you almost laugh, that she's even attempting to defend it. "What's not been right about this if it's not been anything?"

"We're not old friends, Emily. We were never just friends. Not really, not _ever_."

"You're making this into something that it's not," she dismisses.

"I call it like I see it – and the way I see it, I can't do this with you. I can't be your chum, your _mate_, who takes you in after a row with your girlfriend, who nurses your wound and counsels you to be strong, who assures you it'll all work out."

"Why can't we just –"

"Because I'm always going to think that she'll never love you enough! I'm always going to think that I'll love you best!" The exclamation is like echoes in an empty space, punctuated by wild flails of your hands and a tear that slides halfway down your cheek before you wipe it away. And then your emotions break until all you can manage is barely above a whisper. "And I think you know that. So we can't _just_."

You leave it at that because the longer you look at her, the longer her eyes lock with yours, the more superfluous words start to feel.

She cries to herself. Just turns away and pulls her knees up to her chest, hugging her arms around them and crying. Your lip keeps trembling and though you bite it to keep from sobbing, there's a stream of tears that keeps regenerating no matter how often you swipe at your eyes. It feels fucking terrible to be sat with her, hurting, and not reaching for comfort. So when you're walking around the bed towards her, you decide, mid-step, you can make things feel better, even just for a bit.

You sit in front of her on the bed, close enough so that when you've tucked one leg up under the other it's resting on her feet, against her shins. With a surprisingly steady hand you reach up, brush small strands of hair from her face – and she stays still, watching you. But when you place a thumb below her cut and feel your palm make contact against her warm, damp skin she just closes her eyes and says, "Don't touch it. Please."

You don't touch it. You kiss it. It's not much space, closing the gap between where you're sat and Emily. And she doesn't move, not even her arms, which are still tightly wrapped around her legs. So you just lean in, press your lips to the skin just below it – her bruised and open cheekbone – just lightly enough that when you sit back, you can taste the salt.

The room's a bit brighter, whatever clouded sun that will cover London skies today still slowly making its way over building tops.

Time passes, and you've no idea if it's minutes or hours, but she finally says what's been brimming at the surface. "I should go."

And you just nod and stand, waiting for her to stand up next to you, which she does. There's this moment of hesitation that's so strong it's fucking physical – you can feel it in muscle spasms of your arms and legs. But Emily erases all of that hesitancy by just leaning in, wrapping her arms around your waist and pulling you into a hug. And then your arms just fall around her shoulders, and her head against your chest, like your bodies are made of notches and grooves that have just slid seamlessly into place.


	9. Chapter 9

**Author's Note:** I've got to say just a general but extremely large thanks to everyone that's reviewed the last couple chaps and the story in general because the responses have all been equally shocking and well fucking appreciated. And if I haven't yet responded, I'm off to do it right now!

Though, specifically, I've obviously got to say a massive thanks - and probably, like, send a fucking moped - to **niceoneblondie** who pimped out this story like a maniac in her newest update of Ink. We've also been writing a bit of tandem Kaomi, apparently, [in case you haven't caught up with her latest chap] because, brace yourself kids: KFF has arrived on the fucking scene. I can't actually believe I've neglected her for eight whole chapters. So without further delay. Let's fucking get on with it.

* * *

At the door, your eyes are kept downward so you can see the way Emily's hand fiddles the hem of her top, the way one foot keeps rolling onto its side then flat again. Like she's been standing too long and the bottoms of her feet are sore as a result. Except it's not that, and probably more likely a nervous habit. One you've forgotten entirely until you see it happening and then this series of images – sort of broken up by your poor recall – just resurfaces while you're stood there in front of her.

* * *

Katie'd been a cunting bitch [again] and you'd reacted as per, storming off from the group and struggling in your shaken rage to find a lighter in that ridiculously humongous bag of yours that somehow made you feel bigger, more important, simply by nature of its size. But you didn't find the lighter, or at least, not quickly enough, before one was being proffered by a small hand with chipped nail varnish. And Emily rarely spoke to anyone back then, let alone you. So it was less odd then for you both to be stood there, sharing a lighter and smoking your fags without saying a bloody word. But then when she did speak, you hadn't looked directly at her – still too fucking scary, that – and kept your eyes at your shoes [or _hers_, really].

"Katie's just trying to get a laugh because she knows her own personality is such a fucking joke."

The sound of her voice was almost jarring back then, making it easy to forget just how fucking lovely it was, in that you so rarely heard it. Even more lovely when she felt brave enough to talk shit about her sister. You'd maybe wanted to tell her that, or at least allowed yourself a smile – allowed yourself to share some small, insignificant moment at least, at Katie's expense. But it'd be long months before you let that happen – before sharing _anything_ with Emily – with the help of alcohol or powder or pills. And even longer before you'd do it sober. Which you were then, incredibly, fucking sober and stood on some street you can't remember, in some section of Bristol that's faded from your memory. So you'd said nothing, kept your eyes low and watched Emily's feet, in pearlescent ballerina flats, as they rolled onto their sides then laid back flat against the pavement.

* * *

That you've somehow gotten back to this place, where it's easier to not look at her, where it feels safer to keep your eyes downcast, doesn't escape you.

"When is your flight tomorrow?"

_Still just as jarring_, you think, and look up at the sound of her voice. _Still just as lovely_.

"Early afternoon. Eleven, I think."

Departure time is 11:37, actually. Terminal five. You've no idea why you think keeping things vague will make leaving any fucking easier.

"Can I –" Emily starts, stops. Starts again, "Should I not call you, or?"

You take your bottom lip between your teeth and push down and up with your left hand on the door handle where you're leant up against the door because you've already opened it, naively believing it'd hurry this excruciating process along. But it's still early morning and the corridors are quiet and door, open or not, isn't rushing Emily into fucking _anything_.

You sigh, "I don't know."

You literally haven't the slightest what would be worse:

Making this your last conversation, watching her leave and knowing it could be another decade before you see her again.

Or, taking her call at some point later while you're still in the same time zone, and having to leave anyway.

And she just nods, like she gets it. Like she knows there's not really a good answer, a right way to do this.

"I suppose," you start slowly, feeling quite careful now about the things struggling to erupt from within because you've sure as fuck said more than enough already. And Emily just watches you ease into it, taking short breaths like someone who's trying to keep from crying. "I'd like to know that you're alright. Once you're with Katie or – home." And you nearly vomit to say the word, your stomach revolting at the thought of Emily going back there for any length of time.

"I could phone you once I've met up with Katie. We could," she swallows, clenches and unclenches her fingers around the bottom of her shirt sleeve. The one that's been stained with stripes of dried blood. "We could have a late lunch maybe?"

"I'm not sure that I'll have time." You stand upright, cross your arms in front of you, alternating your weight from one foot to the other. "I've got some loose ends to tie up at the venue, and packing –"

"It's okay if you don't want to." A smile appears on her lips then disappears so quickly you almost think you've imagined it.

"I _do_ want to," you say, your fucking tongue running away with your thoughts again. "That's – that's the problem, isn't it?"

Emily stops fidgeting – stops moving her feet and the nervous twitches of her fingers – and grows very still. You stop breathing, probably, or at least take in oxygen at such a shallow rate that it _feels_ like you've stopped altogether. You know what this moment is – could recount it second for second – for how many times you've found yourself in one just like it. And Emily knows you know, which is why she's turned to stone. It's safer, the longer you're both immoveable. You're looking at her eyes – the only part of her still moving – because the second you look away, you know your gaze will plummet downward. Over the delicate slope of her nose and onto her lips. _And that will be it_, you think. That will be your fucking ruin.

But then Emily cheats, with just the quickest dart of her tongue across her lips, and your resolve vanishes so fast it leaves you breathless.

You've moved a hand to her waist, pressed it fully against her stomach – easily the most intimate touch you've had in lifetimes – until she's forced to take a step back. Until she's pushed up against the doorjamb. And she just inhales this short breath at making contact – with either your hand or the surface behind her, as if it fucking matters at this point – with her lips barely parted and her eyes never leaving yours. It's been a long time coming, this. And you were fucking doomed from the start.

It's the most insignificant of noises – a tiny bell chime – but it echoes through the corridor, and you pause. _Just in time_, you think. The sound of the lift doors sliding open follows and then a quiet chatter of voices drifts towards you. It's chamber maids or room service or the early arrival of new hotel patrons. It doesn't really matter what or who just that it's happened is enough. Enough for everything to come full stop. And you take a step back, let your hand fall slowly from her and watch a thousand different emotions cross her face. One of which, you're certain, is relief.

"Fuck." It's mostly to yourself though you've said it looking a straight at her. And you're moving a trail of fingers to your lips – a heat registering there that you ascribe immediately to Emily's breath having just been millimetres away.

Emily doesn't say anything, nor does she react, not really, to the space you've just taken, then given back.

"Ten years, ten _fucking_ years, and in less than two months I'm as good as," you end it there, your train of thought that's basically gone completely off the rails at this point, and slowly tip your head back, shaking it against the wooden doorframe. And you wonder if Emily's habit for lingering sentence structure is somehow contagious.

"You still are." Emily looks down, like she's recalling some memory and it'll come more readily if she's not looking at you. And you can empathise with her need to look away in order to say the things that weigh the most. But then, Emily's always been braver than you. So she's looked back to you when she says, "You're still ... just as good."

It shatters everything. The illusion that you'll survive this – that you'll survive _her_ – a second time, being the loudest.

"You should go. Before that changes."

"I'll ring you," she says, barely managing to run one hand through her hair, tuck it behind an ear. It's what you would have done, you think, had you gone through with it.

You nod, breathing quickly now, like you've just been underwater and regulating the intake of air feels foreign. She takes a sideways step, out into the corridor, just after the chamber maids and their trolley full of fresh linens and new soaps have passed by.

"Don't go back to her." You sound well fucking desperate – something you'd normally loathe about yourself if it weren't also a feeling you'd gotten accustomed to over the past several weeks. Desperate and helpless and a host of other unimaginable ailments you thought you'd outgrown.

She doesn't give you a chance to take it back, or amend the demand you've got no right to make [you've fucking said so yourself]. She doesn't even give you a chance to imagine her response – prepare for it in any way – because she's so quick to say, "Don't go back to New York."

Your mouth is open to answer her, but she's stolen all the air. She's taken every last particle from you. She's taken everything, again.

"I can't not go," you tell her, and it doesn't even catch you by surprise then, that your eyes have again filled with tears, that your voice has risen an octave or two and sounds small and weak.

Emily just takes this heavy shrug as tears of her own spring up and roll down her face – the moisture of them getting trapped in the reddened crevices of her right cheek.

"Neither can I."

* * *

The first text comes hours later, when you've showered and changed clothes, made the bed and find yourself, for once, sitting at the desk composing an email to your boss.

Her text says: _At Katie's hotel. Not as posh as yours. Feeling better _

There's a relief in that – relief that she's with Katie and not _elsewhere_ – but now you're completely distracted by her again where for the past few hours you'd been only moderately distracted. At one point during your shower, finding yourself just staring at your hand – the one that'd been pressed to her – for so long you forget to wash your hair and have to get in again after towelling dry.

_Finishing up some work. Glad you're doing ok. Be sure to make Katie aware I've finally gone classier than her_

Emily's reply doesn't come for another hour or so, and you've spent most of that time just staring at this half-written note to your boss, replaying the last 12 hours over and over again in your head.

_Lunch at The Table? It's in southbank. Southwark st?_

You sigh heavily, snap shut the lid of your computer and start to thumb a reply.

* * *

Running into Emily at a random, London coffee shop six weeks ago had been surreal. Meeting Katie in a café where you'd expected to find Emily, or at the very least Katie _and_ Emily, feels like fucking déjà vu.

Though she's facing you this time – sat at a table you can see upon entering – so the element of surprise isn't what it was. But she's wearing a familiar smirk, an almost nice smile that you want to trust but feel equally unsettled by.

"Relax," she says, your face no doubt displaying every emotion of unease that's coursing your nervous system, the way it's been betraying you all day, "Emily's meeting us here – she had to run home first."

Your face must pale at that because Katie, almost fucking _affectionately_, takes your wrist in her hand when she stands up from the table, and gives it a gentle squeeze.

"You could, like, give me a fucking hug or something." Her smile looks more genuine than you've ever seen it, when directed at you anyway. "Promise I won't bite or anything."

Hugging Katie Fitch is about as awkward an exchange as you'll probably ever have, save the time you'd been sexually harassed by your politics teacher, perhaps. And you sort of laugh, involuntarily, at the correlation you've just drawn between an innocent embrace with someone you'd spent nearly _every day_ with for several summers, and an unwelcome snog from a pervy, misguided professor.

Katie takes her seat and you follow suit and then look at her properly for the first time.

"You're looking good, Katie."

"Sorry, was that a _compliment_?"

"Thought since we were old, hugging pals now, a compliment wouldn't be completely out-of-line," you say, to which she just sort of chuckles while placing a napkin along her lap. "So Emily went back to the flat – alone?"

Katie looks up from the table, her expression so confident and fucking _calm_, it's hard to remember her as the once obnoxiously loud and abrasive girl who tried to humiliate you for years. Then just plain _hated_ you for several more.

"Emily's a big girl, Naomi."

"Yes, but –"

"She doesn't need her overbearing sister to swoop in and protect her – I'm not here to, like, wage her fucking battles. I'm far more comfortable filling the supportive role these days, or haven't you heard?"

"How are you not fucking _worried_?" You can feel your blood pumping rapidly, your pulse accelerating in direct contrast to Katie's quiet demeanour and her crooked, smirking mouth.

"Rose isn't a violent person." She says it as easily as if she'd just told you, 'Rose makes delicious pudding.'

"I beg to fucking differ, Katie."

A server stops by the table, fills up your glass with water and asks if you'd like something else to drink. You'd like several drinks, thanks, potent with alcohol and served in rapid succession, preferably. But you stick to water because that's what Katie's drinking and you're apparently meant to just follow her fucking lead now or something.

"Let's not cause a scene that could, like, ban me from this place, yeah? I'm rather fond of their duck confit hash."

"You've seen her _face_, Katie," you say, this time keeping your tone a bit more controlled, a bit less frantic. "What's to say she's not capable of doing that again? That she hasn't already done? Or worse – what about Lewis? Your _nephew_."

"I don't need a fucking diagram of my family tree, thanks." It's not said unkindly, just in a way that is so very _Katie_, you feel your hairs stand on end. "I get that this is scary, alright? I get that things are pretty volatile at the moment. But it's not for the reasons you think."

"How do you know what I think?" You furrow your brow and sit back – away from the table and away from her – because the thought that Katie Fitch can deduce anything about you still feels like the worst kind of violation.

"Because it's written all over your face, babes."

It's a pet name she used to call Effy and even sometimes Freddie and basically _everyone_ that wasn't you; and you don't like the way that hearing it now makes it sound fucking endearing or something.

"I said something to her, to _Rose_, about Emily." You've kept your gaze on the table but chance a look up to find Katie looking expectant, which makes you clear your throat and clarify, "About Emily _and_ me, sort of."

"Never did know how to keep your bloody mouth shut, did you?"

"Point is," you push on, ignoring Katie's dig, whether she's fucking joking or not, "it was just a few days ago – and now this –" you stop short not because Katie's interrupted you, but because she's _laughing_ at you.

"_Jesus_, are you _really_ still so fucking full of yourself? Can't anything in Emily's life ever just be about _her_, and not, like, some string of consequences left for her in the wake of Naomi _bloody_ Campbell?"

"So, you don't think –"

"No, Naomi, I don't think. In fact, I _know_ it's got fuck-all to do with you and your soppy proclamations, no matter how grand you've imagined them to be."

You want to be mad at her. Your first instinct is to flip the table or slap that smug look right off her face.

But then she's not really smug and looks instead rather serious when she says, "Rose is sick, okay?"

"Sick _how_?"

"I don't know exactly – some chemical imbalance of sorts – and I haven't even known for that long because it'd never been an issue til now. And anyway you know how Ems fucking is. Can't be arsed to tell me anything until she's up to her tits in it."

"What's changed then?"

"I shouldn't be telling you this, you know." And just as you're about to protest, she just eyes you pointedly and keeps going. "Emily was pretty specific about keeping schtum."

"But?"

She smiles again and – even though you've obviously grown into different people – it really is fucking bizarre to think of her so fondly.

"But I sort of feel like I, you know, owe you one."

"Just the one, ey?" you tease, smirking into your water glass.

"Hardly seems fair to keep score after all this time, yeah?"

"Go on then." And you just smile, fold your arms across your stomach. "Pay up."

She rolls her eyes, comments first on how you've not managed to get 'any less, fucking _annoying_' over the years, then continues on about Rose.

"Apparently when she got pregnant with Lewis, the doctors switched her prescriptions to what they thought might be safer for the baby. And things seemed to progress rather, fucking seamlessly for a while. Once she'd delivered, though, her symptoms started to mirror something like postpartum, and gradually her mood swings grew more severe, more unstable until," Katie shrugs, looks down to her mobile that's just chimed.

"Jesus," you breathe out.

"Yeah." She sets her mobile back down onto the table and looks up at you.

"Can it be remedied? With a return to her old medications or something?"

"She's already contacted her doctor, I guess, and he fully expects changing back her meds will stabilise the highs and lows, or so say the three-to-four hundred messages she's left with Emily."

"Well, that's – something," you sigh.

Katie nods then tilts her head a bit to one side. "Though, I'm not sure something like this gets _remedied_ with a new lot of pills. Even if, technically, Rose goes back to being, you know, Rose."

"Right," you say. And then blink several times at the empty space behind Katie's head because the thought of Emily _not_ going back to Rose is causing a different sort of panic – though equally terrifying – than the idea of her staying _with_ Rose and trying to make it work.

"That was her, by the way. She's just round the corner so when she gets here just, like, pretend you've insulted me or something, yeah?"

You catch her smile from your peripheral, and your face relaxes immediately because Katie still lisps softly on words with hard 's' sounds like _insulted_. It was something that always made her seem slightly less threatening no matter how loudly she raged; and you've always sort of enjoyed that chink in her otherwise bold, brash armour. Now it's something you simply appreciate as a familiar comfort, a thing you never thought you'd miss until hearing it again.

"For old times' sake?"

"Exactly, you poor, old lezzah bitch."

You raise a glass to her, grinning broader than you have in days.

"Cheers, you slagging cow."

She laughs out loud then, forcing this big noise from somewhere deep inside her tiny frame, and then waves over your head – no doubt to Emily, who's just arrived.

* * *

** One other quick note: a few of you lovelies were curious about Rose's [bastard!] ring. It wasn't meant to imply marriage or engagement or anything, but rather just something I imagine Emily would do: shower her long-term girlfriend/partner/person with lovely trinkets. And Rose, to me, seems like a jewelry person. So, there you have it.


	10. Chapter 10

**Author's Note:** Not much to say on this except that I wrote this chap three separate times, and I'm still not sure I got it right, but well, here it is. Also, I've never been much a fan of fic mixes [though appreciate the time it must take to select/match songs to bits of writing]; but if there were ever a song that I felt resonated with Emily and Naomi and where we currently find them, it's Of Monsters and Men _Love Love Love. _Give it a listen if you like. I find it to be a rather lovely sentiment.

* * *

Emily's out-of-sorts when she arrives. You watch helplessly as she picks at her food and try not to look too closely at the red beneath her eyes where she's clearly been crying. Then you're actually grateful that Katie's no longer so ruthless in her control over Emily. A different Katie would have pounced on her, demanded to know everything, every word. Instead, Katie just keeps reaching out to touch her sister's arm while she speaks – about her travels, about her work, about the life she never thought she'd have – as these subtle reassurances that she's still there. And by mid-meal, Emily actually seems a bit better. Or, less likely to break apart at any moment at least.

Still, it's not how you want to leave her. So you tell them it'd be great if they'd meet you for drinks with Effy. You're not sure if that's really true because you never could keep track of Katie and Effy, and on what plane of truce or tolerance they existed at any given time. But then, you're acting on selfish impulse and couldn't actually care less if the two of them end up mud wrestling on the Heath, so long as you get more time with Emily.

* * *

Though, partly, you are rather curious to see how this newly matured, subdued version of Katie might interact with Effy, a girl whom she once idolised so heavily she was able to forgive having her head split open with a rock.

Of course, you've failed to factor in the significance of alcohol and its tendency to reduce you all to acting half your age, maturity be fucked.

Katie gets louder – both her voice and her personality – and seems much more recognisable to you now. Effy is more animated in that, at one point, she grabs onto the arm of Katie's chair to keep from spitting her drink onto the table. Emily laughs, _really_ laughs, like she's not just experienced the worst kind of trauma. Like she's not tried to hide that trauma behind an extra layer of concealer. But you don't have much chance to dwell on it because you're far too relaxed from all the wine and far too amused by finding yourself in their company.

It's not long before Katie's launched into some embarrassing retell of an afternoon back in Bristol, cackling so loudly you think Effy's face might break open for how much she's grinning. And Emily just sits back into the booth, sips from her drink, and lets her sister carry on.

"You enjoying this then?"

You lean into her a bit to ask because the music's pretty loud [for some place that doesn't even have a dance floor] and because Katie's story has been momentarily derailed by Effy, who wants to know in exactly what state of undress you'd been when Jenna entered the twins' room carrying a basket of laundry.

"Sort of, yeah," she smiles. "It's nice."

"Yeah, it is." It's really the only way to describe it, this feeling. It's just ... nice.

"I don't think I ever said thanks, for calling Katie and for, well, everything. So, thanks."

"Welcome," you smile at her. "And you're feeling alright? All things considered?"

She exhales lightly and nods. "Yeah. All things considered."

You want to ask more, and you don't. You want to know everything, and you want to forget just as much. It's an internal conflict for another time, you think. Tonight is about making things better, for a little while anyway.

"—like we're fucking invisible over here," is the last of Katie's sentence that trails into your conscious after having let yourself lock eyes with Emily again, when you've _promised_ yourself you would fucking stop.

"Sorry, Katiekins, but do you think we could move on from the stories where I'd been found in my knickers?"

"Oh, I don't know, Naomi," Katie coos, tipping what's left of her martini into her mouth then finishing with a wicked smirk. "The memories of you having been caught with your tits out are some of my favourites."

"Fucking pervert," you laugh. When the lime wedge you've tossed at her lands in her cleavage, Emily joins in and laughs lightly beside you.

Some time later, Emily mentions that Katie might like to see the Asylum exhibit. And because you've had more than your fair share of wine, you're already insisting taking a cab there and boasting about still holding a key to the building before realising that Emily probably meant she'd like to show her sister the installation at some point while she's in town, and not like, immediately.

And when you've all crammed into the back of a taxi, Emily says, "You don't have to do this – it's already after eleven," confirming as much.

But, since you've already committed, you just brush it off easily. "It's fine – it'll be great. We'll have the place to ourselves and won't be bothered by obnoxiously opinionated art critics and snobbish admirers of the art world."

"Present company excluded," she then says, her voice sort of low and her smile sort of wonderful, and it's maybe the only insult you've ever received that makes your stomach flip nervously.

* * *

The cab ride and short walk to the venue have sobered you all considerably, though it doesn't stop your voices from bouncing through the space, ricocheting against its crumbling stone walls all the way up to its exposed iron beams. And you just sort of pair off, unintentionally, since you're already so familiar with its layout, with the art itself, and Effy's spent loads of time there as a by-product of your involvement.

When you turn your head to her, after watching the twins standing in front of one of Trevor's pieces, she's eyeing you like you've just been caught looking at someone else's paper during an exam. You're about to say '_What?_' like going on the defensive makes more sense than cowering guiltily since you weren't even fucking doing anything.

But she just says, "I need a fag," and walks off. And if there's one thing Effy has always been able to do, it's getting people to follow her for no apparent reason.

When you catch up to her, she's already lit two fags and hands one to you after you've propped open the chapel door with a rock.

"Careful, don't let Katie see that," she grins and cocks her head towards your makeshift doorstop.

And you just laugh, take a drag, and then shake your head. "We were so fucked up, weren't we?"

Effy just shrugs, looks out towards the open space in front of you. "We were just kids. And anyway, some of us are still fucked up."

It doesn't even matter if she's referring to you or to Emily, or even to herself, because you don't ask her to elaborate. And either way, it's probably true. You smoke silently for a few more drags, noting how there's a chill in the air that hadn't been there just a week prior.

"You still haven't worked anything out, have you?" Effy says.

"What is there to work out?" you say tiredly. "I'm leaving and she's –"

"She asked you to stay."

"Yeah? And for what exactly?" The agitation is showing, in your stance, suddenly rigid and affronting, in the way you take quick drags from the remainder of your cigarette.

The door behind you creaks open, and you don't even have to turn around to know who's found you because the look on Effy's face says everything.

"There you are – sorry, but Katie needs the loo, and I can't remember where they are. Apparently I was a bit tipsy at the opening." Emily's short little chuckles float past your shoulder and Effy just smiles, crushing the end of her fag against the wall beside you.

"I'll be right there," Effy says. And when you hear the door creak back into place she looks at you with this kind of affectionate command and says, "We're not kids anymore, Naomi. Fucking sort it out."

* * *

You find her sat on one of the used couches strewn about the place – they all smell a bit funny but look rather fitting with the rest of the space – and take just a minute to look at her before the click-clack of your shoes gives you away and she looks up.

"Hey."

You sit. Press the palms of your hands flat against the old, crushed velvet of the sofa that's worn thin and smooth. "Hey."

"I can't believe you're leaving." She doesn't look at you, and you sort of think it's why you're able to respond so quickly, without thinking.

"I can't believe you're staying." You don't have to finish it by saying '_with her_' because the mild disdain in your voice is implication enough.

"I don't –" she starts, and then just shakes her head.

"Stop doing that."

It's more shock than anything that you see when she looks over to you. "Stop what?"

"Stop fucking censoring yourself. Stop saying these half-truths. Just – stop." You take a deep breath. "You don't what?"

"I don't want to leave her." She swallows hard and then looks away again. "I know I should, but – I don't want to. I love her, you know."

It's not very audible, not even considering the acoustics, but you manage to say, "I know."

"I just don't – it's not fair – I just don't understand why the people I love." She stops, starts again. "It's not fair that I have to endure some kind of cruelty just because I can't help it – I can't help loving them."

You don't have to ask her to explain further. She means Rose, obviously. But she also means _you_. And you don't even stop to second-guess it because the look in her eyes speaks volumes.

"No – that's not fucking fair, Emily." And now your voice is loud and unrestrained. "That is _not_ fucking fair. This isn't the same, and you can't imply that I somehow – that we were ever like – _no_." You stand then, debating quickly between walking away or sitting back down, because your stomach has just lurched so heavily you think that dinner and too much wine could spill out at any moment.

"I know, I know. I didn't mean –" she tries back-tracking.

"Yes you did. And that's fucked up."

"I'm sorry," comes out so quietly, you sit back down if only to hear her better. "Everything is just complete shit. I'm sorry, I'm just really fucked right now."

You find some control over your voice again, quietening it significantly. "I would never – I would _never_ do that, Emily. _Ever_." She's nodding, even as you continue. "We're not the same people, me and Rose. And this is _not_ the decision you had to make before."

"Yeah, I know." She runs her fingers under each eye, the tips of them blackened only slightly where her mascara has run. "I just sort of wish it were." And then she smiles at you – this kind of wistful look that doesn't make you feel any less like vomiting everywhere. "Because, I think, at least then I'd know how to make the right one."

"Hindsight can be terribly cruel," you say, and lean back into the sofa.

She watches you, pinches her lips together in that repetitive motion that usually means she's got words trapped behind them. And you can't really imagine what more there is to say that hasn't already been said – or at the very least, _implied_ – over the course of the past three days, if not the past six weeks.

Though it seems Emily's going for broke because she then asks, "Would you take it back? If you could have – I mean, do you think things might have gone differently – if you had them to do over?" When she looks at you, it hurts. Everywhere. "Would you change anything?"

You could hear a fucking pin drop for how still everything's gone in that massive chapel. So your heart nearly stops at the sound of Katie's voice and the clicking of her and Effy's shoes against the floors. Emily doesn't really acknowledge the interruption and instead keeps her eyes on you, so that you're forced to look away first, meeting Effy's gaze and then Katie's.

"Better get going, I think," you say, standing to join them as they approach.

You split off in separate taxis and try not to hug Emily for any longer than you've already hugged Katie, even though she clings a bit to the fabric of your top and rests her chin, just briefly, onto your shoulder. When it's just you and Effy in the backseat of your own taxi, you link arms and rest your head against her shoulder, which isn't at all comfortable because she's never had enough body fat to properly snuggle into. But, it feels nice and like something you'll miss horribly once you've left.

"Sorted?" she says softly, after several minutes of silence.

And it's not ever going to be, you think. Not really, not ever. But it's as good as over now; you know that Emily will stay and that you'll leave, and so you just answer, "Yeah. Sure."

Before falling asleep – and you're well knackered and already dreading the wake-up call – you find Emily's number in your mobile and type out a text, then deliberate sending it for another twenty minutes. You stare at it for even longer after it's been sent and not because you're awaiting a response. It's Emily, after all, who needed an answer. And you think for such a short reply, it says so much more than you've ever been able to.

_Yes, everything_.


	11. Chapter 11

**Author's Note:** The response to the last update was just - well, I have no words left, really. So, again, just saying a massive thanks. Emily Fitch has returned to offer some insight on a topic that has been HIGHLY demanded for several chaps [if not since the beginning, actually]. And, well, it's not going to be pretty, mates. I won't lie. But, I do solemnly swear on, like, a stack of Garibaldi's, that things are getting better for these two. I will not leave them [or you] in turmoil for much longer. Alright, on we go.

* * *

It's the Christmas holiday that does you in. Because up until that point, it'd been an uncomfortable adjustment at best and mildly traumatic at worst; but then you spend two, full weeks in each other's pockets. In old bedrooms, and in old tee shirts, and in old, comfy nooks like the yellow sofa of Gina's sitting room. It's lovely. And it ruins you completely.

Katie essentially wants nothing to do with you while you're back home, sickened again by your constant displays of affection, like she hasn't spent the past year hanging out with you and Naomi _nearly every day_. But, whatever, it's one less person contending for your time, and so when she fucks off chasing after the other uni freshers home on holiday you couldn't be more pleased.

And your mum's nearly given up trying to keep you pinned to the house since even when you are around, you've got Naomi's hand linked up with your own and hardly even notice her sidelong glances of disapproval anymore.

So it shouldn't be a surprise then – though it really, really is – that two weeks into your next term, Naomi pops up on campus just outside the English building after your post-war-era American literature class. Because you'd always assumed this would happen. That one of you would cave to the exhaustion and depression of keeping the distance and turn up in the other's orbit unannounced. But the fact that it's _her_, and not you who's crumbled first, leaves you feeling completely off-kilter.

You've lasted just barely three months apart; and, off the look on Katie's face as you enter your shared flat, you think she's probably just lost a massive wager with Cook on how long it would take.

"What the fuck is all this?" Your sister, delightful as ever, greets you the very instant you've stepped inside, pulling Naomi along behind you. Katie's eyes are on the hold-all at Naomi's feet.

"Naomi's going to –" and you look back at Naomi, just to make sure she's actually standing there, just to make sure you haven't imagined her eyes or her nervous smile "—stay with us for a bit." You smile, watch her relax, and then kiss her because – fuck. Just because.

"What does that _mean_ exactly? It's not like we've got loads of space for extra shit, Emily." Then she's turned on Naomi. "And anyway, don't you, like, go to university or something? _In London_?"

"Fuck off, Katie," you answer for the both of you and then you're on the move again, making a quick get-away to your bedroom with Naomi in tow.

"_Emily_! Mum and Dad are helping us with this flat."

"Yeah, and?"

She's up and following you now – you can hear her quick, angry stomps trailing after even though you refuse to stop and turn around.

"Which means you can't fucking convert it into some shag palace for you and your girlfriend on a fucking whim just because you've got, like, co-dependency issues!"

The rant continues but you don't hear much of it that isn't muffled by the door you've kicked shut after shoving Naomi – and her massive piece of luggage – into the room.

"Emily –" Katie's reached the screeching stage at this point, which she's teemed appropriately with loud bangs against your door "—_god_, you're a fucking, selfish cow sometimes! Open the door!"

"Can't," you yell back to her, though you're smiling at Naomi and moving towards the zip on her winter coat, "got my hands full at the moment." The kiss turns into high-pitched squeals when your hands make their way into the coat and under her jumper.

"_Christ_! Your hands are fucking freezing!" She's laughing, untying the loose knots of your scarf and kissing you back.

"Fucking hell, it's been three bloody years – don't you two _ever_ tire of taking off each other's clothes?"

It's Katie's last attempt – and probably not even enough to qualify as an _attempt_, really – to communicate through a closed door, and her petulant stomping leaving the corridor is the last thing you hear before Naomi's manoeuvred you both back onto your bed.

* * *

It's not really a discussion after that. Or, at least, not one that you're having with Katie. Or with your parents, for that matter, who are actually just relieved you're no longer wasting money on train tickets to London every chance you get. There's a short conversation – of which you hear only one side – between Naomi and Gina one afternoon a few days later.

And the conversation gets a bit more heated than you'd imagined. Though after Naomi raises a rather solid point about the transient, unsettled lifestyle in which she was brought up, Gina seems to retreat on her insistence that Naomi go back to London and finish out her year. And then she just wishes you both well with what – and you can only imagine, based off the look of horror on your girlfriend's face – is most likely an anecdote about finding love in her own years of early adulthood.

"So," you say, sat at the desk in your room that's cramped with books and other clutter that's got nothing to do with coursework because you've never been very tidy and that was when you had twice the space.

Naomi's just ended the call with her mum, tossing her mobile to the foot of your bed, and looks exhausted. "So?"

"Are you sure this is happening?"

"It is," she flips onto her side, rests her head onto her hand where's she laid out on your bed. "If you're okay with it?"

There was a time when her uncertainty felt like bits of glass in your palms, in the soft flesh of your feet. An irritable pain that you felt every time you ran after her, every time you reached out to touch her. But it's a different kind of hesitation now, and you sort of love her ridiculously for still not knowing how much she's allowed to smother you – how you'll let her do it every time.

So you just stand and take the only step between your desk and bed and then place one knee on either side of her waist, feel her shift beneath you until she's looking up. And it's really the only time – this position – where you can see how it would feel to tower over her.

She reaches up for your hands and then you've twisted all your fingers together and rest them back on the bed – it's a movement that neither of you even acknowledge for how often it happens. "Dunno, Naoms," you smile down at her, "that would mean I'd have to see you _all_ of the time: sleeping, eating, showering."

"Showering, hey?" she smirks. "Just what kind of girl do you think I am exactly?"

She's still smiling right up until you've lowered yourself closer, teasing kisses along her neck, and then you hit the spot that makes her fingers flex tighter around your own. At her sharp intake of breath, you can tell she's no longer smirking when you say next to her ear, "The kind of girl who likes to fuck in the shower."

The sex is so much better than it's been for months, because it's slowed and purposed. The quick, repetitively urgent fucks had had their own allure. But you never really adjusted to feeling like you'd not had enough of her, of _this_, to survive your time apart.

And it's not like you ever had problems cohabitating, so developing a system that works in such a small space happens rather organically. The second year of college – when Naomi's mum moved them to the smaller house – and the summer following, had been like a virtual precursor to what you now have in practice: a shared space.

It goes like this for a bit. And it's fucking brilliant. Naomi looks into transferring but isn't terribly rushed either so she works at an arts supply shop while you're on campus and helps with rent. Which keeps Katie quiet [mostly] until, at some point, you think your sister's realised she even _enjoys_ Naomi being around. No doubt something she'd strongly deny if you were to confront her on it. So you just smile to yourself when they're both screaming at the telly during _X Factor_, laughing hysterically together, and pretend not to notice.

There's an odd dynamic shift in Manchester, where you've acquired a nice handful of friends from uni, and then it's Katie [still in her gap year] who trails about with you, making friendships with them that are supplementary to your own. And if you spent more time publicly berating her in front of them or begging her to get a life of her own, it'd almost feel like sixth form all over again. Except you've always been happy she didn't stay behind in Bristol, wallowing in her medical diagnosis, or worse, going completely off the rails because of it with someone like Effy. When Naomi joins the mix spontaneously, it's like a perfect extension of that dynamic that already works so well.

* * *

The demise of the honeymoon period, as it turns out, is not avoidable.

And it happens so abruptly, so unexpectedly, you almost can't recover for several, long seconds and consider chugging a glass of mango juice just to snap out of it like you're fucking _JJ_ all of a sudden.

"You're going to be the worst pushover when we have kids," is what you say after Naomi agrees you should fuck off on your coursework in favour of going out with your mates Chelsea and Anna.

"That's not very likely," is her noncommittal response.

"No offense," you slip off the bed and remove your top, reaching for the towel on the desk chair, "but you've just said getting smashed with Chelsea is a far better plan than outlining my sixteen-page essay on which my final marks are hinged."

"Yes, well, you're an adult who's capable of making her own decisions, yeah? And anyway, you know I've no interest in having kids."

You feel like you've walked off a the edge of a kerb you didn't know was there; and your entire body, as a result, gets jolted severely, accounting for the sudden surface plunge. "What?"

"Yeah? These bits," and then she just circles one finger around the general area, covered now by your light blue bed linens, "will be facilitating exactly zero foetuses."

"Are you fucking joking right now?" And you just wrap the towel around yourself, like it suddenly feels horrible to be stood in front of her naked. Or maybe you've just caught a chill.

She half-smiles, half-laughs, "Um, no. I'm not – why, are you surprised that someone who grew up with a rotating list of various, unwelcomed housemates, several of which came with infants attached to their tits, would choose to live alone?"

And then you're feeling too hot. Too enraged.

"That's fucking great, Naomi."

"Oh come on, you know what I mean. Living alone _with_ _you_, obviously."

"But, you know that I – we've talked about this." Even as you hear yourself saying it, you can't quite remember if it's true.

"Why are you going off?" And it's not meant to be confrontational, except that nearly half of what Naomi says sounds like a challenge just by her natural inflection, and it's taken you almost four bloody years to sort out the difference.

"Because it's fucking – it's sort of a massive, fucking wrench in the plan, isn't it?"

She sits up then, and you know it's because she's about to approach you. She's going to try and soothe you back from this irrational ledge by cupping your elbow or tucking back your hair behind your ear, but you can't even fucking _look_ at her, so you just turn and head for the door.

"Emily, come on. _Emily_," she urges a bit then, but you've already left the room and close yourself into the bathroom.

"Oi! Fucking hell, Campbell – this is not, like, free-expression, let-your-tits-fly-territory here! Are you trying to scar me for life?"

"Emily, for fuck's sake, open up before Katie gets herself too worked up, yeah?"

You can hear them, through the door, as you turn on the taps and wait for the water to warm. Just before stepping under the spray you reach over and unlatch the lock. When Naomi steps into the room, it's just as Katie is throwing a tee shirt towards the door.

When the door clicks shut behind her she asks cautiously, "Hey, are you okay?"

"Yeah," you say, and then turn away to pull back on the curtain so that a thin cloud of steam wafts into the cooler half of the room. "Sorry, probably just getting my period or something."

Later that night in bed, when pints of cider and too many fags have calmed you significantly, Naomi's flopped a leg over your own and keeps one arm resting on your stomach when she asks into the dark of your room, "We're okay, yeah?"

You tell her what's true: "Yeah, of course." Because you believe it.

* * *

When it ends, the biggest, fucking shock to you all [yourself included], is that you're the one breaking it off. Because you'd always assumed it would be her insecurities and fears that would shatter you eventually. Instead, it's her honesty that you can't accept. It's a reality that you're maybe seeing for the first time ever.

You're the one to pull away, and Naomi just sort of adjusts, silently, to the gradual distance. You bury yourself in books and coursework, spend long hours in the library or on campus. She works longer hours and attaches herself to new social outlets with her workmates. And when you ask her again, some months later, if things will be different, if you can have the house and the family and the settled life, she just turns her head slowly to the window and blinks tears from the corners of her eyes. It's as good an answer as anything.

And you're a broken, sobbing mess – the pair of you – sat closely on your bed while you finally verbalise what's been looming for close to a year. And things have just been lessening at this terribly mundane rate for so long, you're surprised that either one of you hasn't already broached the subject out of sheer boredom.

"I don't want to do this," she's saying, clutching handfuls of her hair between her fingers, holding her head just above her knees.

"I – I don't either," you answer, because it's true. It's _still_ true.

"But you _are_. _You_ are doing this, Em. This isn't me – it's _you_."

"That's not fair, Naomi. You know how I feel – you know what I want."

She looks at you with something so close to contempt, you nearly vomit on the spot. "You're barely twenty – you've no idea what you want."

"I don't know everything, okay? But I know this. And," you wrack a particularly audible sob and then pinch your teeth very hard onto your bottom lip to keep it from happening again, "you want something else."

"I want _you_. I fucking love _you_, Emily. Why does that no longer matter?"

If only she'd been unfaithful, you'd not feel so fucking awful for ending what's been nearly one half of your identity during your most formidable years. It'd be easier, you think, if she'd just fucked some bi-curious girl from a club or one of the sexually-fluid bints who frequent the art shop. But it's not that black-and-white. It's murky and uncertain and sickening. The ending of things with Naomi Campbell was never going to be _easy_, you think, if at all survivable.

* * *

"What the fuck is going on with you two?" Katie demands, more than asks, on the Saturday when Naomi's vacated the flat with her massive bag of clothing and a few, odd boxes.

"We broke up." You taste acid at the back of your tongue as the words croak out, your voice scratched raw from the night previous, and flip through another page of your required reading.

It's a bit horrible, explaining to your sister – barren as the day is long – that you no longer feel Naomi could possibly be your soulmate since she'd prefer burning, hot irons under her eyelids to starting a family with you. That she's not said she doesn't want to be with you, but that she has no interest being with you in the way you'd always imagined. That she'd actually prefer to have you and _only_ you – in French villas or on Grecian beaches – with no chance of dirty nappies or sibling rivalries. And how that feels like not wanting you at all. So you stumble over your words a bit, chancing quick glances in your sister's direction to see she's not either crying or fashioning a shiv from her gossip rag.

It's a bit horrible until Katie's heard you out and says only, "You're so fucking retarded," before getting up from the sofa and leaving the room. At which point, when you're sat all alone after she's slammed the door to her bedroom, it just feels like almost every conversation you've ever had with Katie about Naomi.

* * *

"Come over, _please_," you whimper, pressing a pillow – _her_ pillow – to your chest with your arm wrapped tightly around your knees.

"Ems, I don't think –"

"_Please_," you sob, and you can tell she's out. Can hear the distant sounds of generic pub noise through your mobile speaker.

Once she's in your flat, in your bed and under your weight, you stop crying. Regulate your breaths against the hot skin of her neck and shoulder. The flats of her palms press firm, slow circles on your back over your sleep shirt. The repetitive motion is soothing enough to calm you, but the comfort of it is so excruciating, you almost start crying again as a result.

The sex is different now. It's still slowed and always full of want, but there's an element now that leaves you feeling emptier by the time she's gone. Because the feelings tied up in what you're doing, you don't get to keep. She's not something you get to keep.

"We have to stop." It doesn't matter that she's there, you're saying it mostly to yourself anyway.

She's getting dressed, pulling on the clothes you discarded the night before that are laden with the stench of cigarettes and alcohol, while you lie in bed and stare at the ceiling.

"Yeah." She's doing the buttons on her top, watching her hands work each one through the fabric without looking up.

"So, I'll stop. I'll stop calling."

She looks at you, slumps onto the bed and nods. It's quiet. You know Katie's not yet awake because there's no sounds of shuffling around the flat. So it's just your steady breathing and the rain against your window. It feels like the best kind of morning to stay in bed, fuck off your classes and keep warm under the blankets with Naomi pressed into you. You almost say so, but the thought alone hurts badly enough already so you keep quiet.

"Chelsea and Anna are giving up their flat."

You've been holed up, ignoring your friends, avoiding social engagements, barely concentrating on anything that isn't coursework. So it's a bit jarring that Naomi's got to update you on your own friends. "Oh. Why?"

"Doing some work abroad next term – I thought Katie might have told you."

As it turns out, you've not only deserted the lives of your mates, but of your own flesh-and-blood as well.

"So, where will you go?"

Chelsea and Anna had once taken Naomi in, like a stray cat. And have thus served as a kind of tether, so that although you'd let her go, she was never completely out-of-reach.

"I don't know. Nowhere." And then she shrugs, pulls a loose string from your duvet and wraps it around a finger. "Anywhere."

"You should – go somewhere, I mean." It's this that gets you eye contact. It's this that guts you completely, and you swallow hard to keep from imploding.

"Tell me to stay, and I'll stay," she says, her bottom lip trembling so heavily, she traps it between her teeth.

All you've got to do is rock forward from where you're sat to feel her lips against yours, to feel her hair between your fingers. And she's holding to your shirt like it's flesh and skin while you pull her against your mouth with the force of your hands. When you sit back, let your hands fall to the duvet on either side of her arms, you've got to work hard to say, "You should go."


	12. Chapter 12

At an airport bar near your gate – because thanks to Effy and an unexpected brush with several ghosts of your past, you've managed to brutally fuck your liver during the past several weeks, and why stop now – you've finished half a bloody mary and feel a bit itchy for a smoke. But you've not even brought fags with you [left your partial pack with Effy the previous evening], determined to give them up entirely once you get home. So you just swirl the straw around the glass and watch the bits of pepper get pulled under the surface, lost in thick tomato juice.

Despite your best efforts, you're still drawn to the throngs of passengers, trying to catch a familiar face or a shock of red. But that's not even right because – like so many other things – she's gotten rid of that too. It's this that makes you stop looking, admitting with some reluctance that you've been hoping to see her at all. Because you've never known – not once, not _ever_ – of someone who's played part in grand gestures like last-minute proclamations of undying love at busy airport queues. It's the nonsense of romantic comedies – where the bloke turns up just as some hopeless bint is tearful and heartbroken, about to board the plane, eliciting fucking applause or something from fellow passengers and flight crew alike – and you're a bit, fucking pissed you've considered, even if only briefly, that anything of the sort could happen in your actual life.

But then, you think, it was always _Emily_ who'd forced you into watching that fucking rubbish in the first place. So you feel a bit relieved then, upon realising that this nonsense – on top of everything else – is all her fault.

You're not sure _how_ it's her fault for being in that coffee shop that day. You just know that it is.

Something tells you it was always going to go this way. Something tells you it could have been Greece or Spain or fucking Iceland, and she'd have found you in a similarly spontaneous way – that you'd have done exactly the same things. And given into the parts of yourself that will somehow always belong to her. Something tells you that there was never any chance of avoiding this encounter, and it was only a matter of time.

You can't be sure, but you think that the 'something' could be Gina – the way your mum never could help herself from being obnoxiously intuitive. And you don't see why her not being privy to your current situation would change that.

You swallow back another mouthful and the vodka is more prominent a flavour at this point, the ice having melted down and watered the tomato juice. The barkeep does this kind of lazy hand signal, and you check the time on your mobile before nodding for another. _Fuck it_, you think, you'll sober up properly when you're back on American soil. When you've put a generous berth the size of the fucking Atlantic between you and Emily.

You won't text her, you decide. You won't call her. You won't continue to infringe on the life she's made without you, or allow her to do the same. You'll keep hold of nothing but the memories – just the bits of her you've thought belonged to you all along.

It's a brilliant plan.

* * *

A week after your trip, you've stopped cringing at the harsh accents heard all about you, and nearly forget just how lovely the lilt of the English dialect can be. You've also remembered your routine and how, once reintroduced, it calms and regulates the nerves that had been so recently frayed in London.

And there's a rhythm to New York that's always drawn you in – a thrumming, busy pulse that keeps an overwhelming loneliness at bay while still allowing you some sense of detachment. A delicate balance you've craved since you'd first arrived all those years ago.

Work piles so high that you're often in the offices for a standard eight hours then find yourself still at it while back at your flat. And you love that it's got nothing to do with London, or travel, or redheads-gone-brunette with sad, lovely eyes.

You go out for drinks one night with your boss, Richard, when he practically forbids you to log any more hours and says with a cheerful clap on your back, "Fucking take a load off already." It's a narrow space, this bar, in the way that the structure of New York buildings were never constructed to sufficiently manage so many, fucking people. And everything's just a bit crammed into tiny spaces – tables, chairs, staff, patrons. No one minds, really. No one stops to notice just how little room there is to move about in this city, which makes it that much easier to disappear into the mass. Richard tries it on with the girl behind the bar – the way he always does when you're at this spot and he's had a few – but it's a good distraction for him because you've been shit at making conversation for over an hour.

When he asks on your trip, if you'd seen any old friends or visited old haunts, your face no doubt blanches horribly, and had you not been sat in a poorly lit pub with eighty other people, he might have even noticed.

Instead, you just say, "Yeah, sort of."

Richard's always been extremely self-involved, and doesn't push it further. You've never been more grateful.

* * *

In another two weeks, September is gone and with it October's ushered in cooler weather; and the air, when it's crisp like this, is almost enough to fool you into thinking it's _clean_ as well. Particularly when you hide out in Prospect Park on Saturdays, when you avoid going into Manhattan like it's plagued and feel yourself taking deep breaths while drinking coffee on the sloped greens in front of the picnic house, watching a handful of kids toss around a Frisbee.

You've not heard from her, and you don't know what to make of it, really. Because to say you're disappointed would be an understatement; but there's a relief in it too. You spend less time worrying over her, feeling confident that Katie – fucking Zen now or not – wouldn't dare leave Emily's side if she thought Rose might pose a greater threat. And you think maybe Emily's decided to do you the same courtesy – to let things lie. To allow things to return to normal at a natural rate.

Of course, returning to some level of normalcy is no easy feat, and by the end of October you've still not been able to delete any of the texts – and it's not like you can actually _hear_ her voice or anything on them – but especially not the voice messages. You can't delete them, but you've stopped accessing them daily and instead only glance through them or listen to them if you've had too much wine. It's a slow return and will probably not ever feel _normal_, but you don't get to pity your misfortunes when you're at least partially if not equally responsible for having ended up this way. Though it's still sad to think of it this way: as an ending.

You don't get much mail that isn't bills [not since your mum learned to email] so when you open the post box at the entry of your flat, you're ready to see someone else's name on what looks like an envelope that might contain legal documents. It's bitterly cold outside, the first properly wintry day of the upcoming season, and your fingers are still a bit numb for not having remembered to wear gloves.

You fully drop the envelope, along with the rest of the post that actually is bills, upon seeing the handwriting.

Some guy carting a bicycle through the entryway, who's name escapes you because in your head you've always just called him 'the sweaty cycler' for obvious reasons, stops to try and help you with it. And you wonder if he's noticed the tremor in your hand as you take it from him and say, "Thanks."

You don't open it for three days.

On the fourth day, after two cigarettes smoked in quick succession [from a pack you'd broken down and bought on day two], and a text from Effy that says only: _quit being a pussy and open it_, you sit down with it at your kitchen table and break open the seal.

Your eyes settle on the first page, and your hands perspire immediately as you first squeeze them into fists then relax them, again and again. You light another fag.

* * *

_An Exercise in Letting Go_  
by Emily Fitch

In the womb, my sister once reached out and grabbed hold of my foot. And even though there's not photographic evidence, like one of those grainy, imaged printouts for twin A and twin B, my mum swears on it because she'd seen it on the screen during an ultrasound. Though, truthfully, the doctor had to point it out to her because the imaging on those machines are such shit we looked more like grey, lumpy brain matter than actual foetuses. Dad confessed to that last bit, and he always has had a more honest face than Mum.

Still, assuming she did take my foot in her hand all those years back, when we were still growing lung tissue and eyelashes, I've since had someone holding some part of me for my entire, fucking life. And I always thought it should feel more comforting, that.

Instead, it's likely ruined me entirely, because I've always been pretty shit at learning to let go.

This girl, who I know nothing of, other than that she's beautiful – other than that I've never really thought of girls as being beautiful, not quite like this – is so rude and abrasive to everyone in our year, I immediately decide she's the bravest person I've ever known. Except I don't know her, not at all. And I don't know why I can't think the same of my sister, who is equally if not more brash for being barely thirteen, except that she's not even 150 centimetres. But this girl is tall, quite tall actually, like the boys. And, yeah, that must be it. During an outdoor science project one day, on the extremely limited school grounds where we're meant to be collecting and identifying different types of foliage, this girl just grabs my hand and hauls me off towards a gathering of flowering shrubbery.

'Come on, I don't want to be left to pair off with one of those tossers,' she tells me.

And I think she must mean the boys because I've always thought them to be tossers too, and maybe I've been right all along.

'Anyway it's sort of pathetic, you always following her around, Emily,' she says, kind of cruelly nodding towards my sister.

I'm then having a horrible time trying to remember which species we're looking at – these squat shrubs with tiny purple flowers – since she's said my name, which I didn't even think she knew. And since she's taken hold of my hand and hasn't let go.

I lose my virginity in a sort of backwards fashion – first with this girl, and then with a boy. And it's all pretty awkward and rubbish – the second time, with the boy who stutters and wears braces – but I never really expected much anyway since I'd already nailed a girl and found it to be rather, fucking brilliant. But as I'm lying there, feeling a bit uncomfortable having just shagged my mate who I don't even fancy, he just finds my hand, under the sheet, and wraps his around mine. We don't fuck aside from this one instance, but I have a hard time not ascribing significance to it – to this moment where he takes my hand and covers it with his own. Because I'd been flailing about in every other facet – at home, in my head, with my family, with this girl – feeling like my insides might explode from so much frenetic exertion. But there's a simplicity here, an innocence to how things ended up with this boy, who just reaches out and holds me in place for a bit.

My sister stops holding on eventually, and I'm so distracted by the sudden, tenuous grasp of this girl, that I hardly notice until she's gone. Until it's years later, and she writes me letters from countries I can hardly pronounce and sounds less and less like the sister I knew, who once taught me that a spoonful of peanut butter will mask the smell of vodka on your breath.

When I wake up one morning after sleeping with this girl – and there's only ever been the one – for the fifteenth time, I register two things simultaneously and take a deliberated second to sort which is the most disturbing.

That I've kept count, like there's some kind of importance in the actual number of times we've fucked.

Or, that she's wrapped herself around me at some point during the night, and for the first time ever, hasn't let go.

I'm always pulling from her the things she's not ready to give – even from the very beginning. Even from before the beginning. Because I see her hesitancy as a weakness, and I don't want her to be fragile. I want her to be braver than that. I want her to be the girl who stood tall and spoke with confidence when puberty hit and almost no one had any self-assurance. Least of all me. I want her to be herself. I want her to be less scared of something I know can be good. I want. I want. I want.

I make demands of her, of us, and the cards nearly always fall in my favour. So I shouldn't be surprised then, that when I tell her to leave me, she does.

This is how I'll learn to let go. By forcing her to let go first.

She's always been more clever at things, and even this – this thing she fought against and didn't want at all – is something at which she excels. Because she doesn't just leave, she disappears entirely. I'm meant to feel freer and lighter, like a balloon that's been tugged along by its string until it slips from the hand that holds it and floats away. No one is holding me anymore. But it's unsettling, this freedom, this feeling that comes from being untethered. I can't imagine it will ever feel right. And maybe it's not meant to, like the reminder of a decision I got wrong. Or maybe it's just that letting go never comes easy, and that I've not yet learned how.

* * *

The cigarette you'd lit has gone untouched and now is just a pinched filter between your fingers and a long, precarious dangle of ash extending over the tray. Slowly, you drop it and swallow, leaning back into your chair as the paper falls back onto the table.

You run a quick hand through your hair and look out the window to your right. The rain pelting against it is threatening to freeze and turn to snow. You exhale something that has nothing to do with the weather and then quietly say, "Fuck," which just about sums it up.

* * *

**Author's Note:** For it's shorter length, this chap actually took forever to churn out because I've been severely distracted by the NEXT chap [well, that and pictures of babies and french bulldogs asleep on knit pillows]. Thanks for all the guest reviews [**naomilyfan**, you are still the wind beneath my wings] on the last update. They were all sort of ridiculously kind and generous. I sort of love that everyone was a bit pissed with Emily on the last update because I think it's what I was planning as a set-up for this chapter. We're building up to something here, kids, can you feel it? I think I've probably tortured us all enough at this point so hang on for that next update, mates. I believe a turn of events of epic proportions is nearing. Stay tuned.


	13. Chapter 13

**Author's Note:** Alright, let's get this out of the way - the piece of writing Naomi receives is both written by & sent from Emily as part of the essays referenced during their dinner at Emily & Rose's flat. Sorry if that was unclear, but I'm often apprehensive to explain too much and am more likely to assume you all basically live on my Naomily-brain wavelength at all times. Apologies for any confusion, mates. As to why Emily sent it, well, stay tuned.

And I guess that goes for all the other 'frustrating unknowns' in this agonisingly slow-moving plot - I'm quite cautious about not leaving questions unanswered, but all in good time, mates. All in good time. But I love the questions and theories so keep them coming!

Anyway, this, I believe, you've been waiting for ...

* * *

Effy's flight is due to land in seven minutes and you're still in the back of a cab, stuck on Atlantic because it's Friday night and traffic is shit and also you may have possibly waited too long to call for a car. Either way, you're anxious about making her wait because she's already voiced her opinion [on more than one occasion] on your 'Americanised punctuality.' So before the car's even come to a full stop in front of the passenger arrivals area, you pull out your mobile to ring her even as you're throwing your card to the driver and telling him to keep the meter running.

Whenever Effy's visited – and it's only been a handful of times – you've always met near a cement piling just outside the exits for international arrivals. The piling is stamped with one of those standard 'no-smoking' symbols, and Effy's always found a sick humour in lighting up her first, post-flight fag beside it.

You've got your mobile pressed to your ear, listening to the ringing through the line and watching your breath in quick, frozen puffs dissipate in front of you. The first week in December brought with it a light dusting of snow, which then turned to a grey and slushy mess since the weather's warmed just slightly. Though you're still fucking freezing through the toes of your boots as you walk briskly towards the meeting spot. The call to Effy – the _third_ call, because you've already tried twice to reach her from the cab – goes to voicemail even though she's no doubt been deplaned for close to twenty minutes and probably on at least her second fag by now.

"I'm late – _fuck_, I know I'm late," you're saying, hurrying along even as your jaw chatters from the cold. "But, answer your phone, for fuck's sake."

And then you've reached the cement 'no-smoking' post as you're ending the call and looking about for that tall, seductively disinterested brunette who'll be leant up against something, attracting attention by doing literally nothing at all. You feel a bit panicked, and it's probably just the chill on your skin coupled with your tardy arrival, but it ceases to matter once you've spotted her.

_Her_ being not so much Effy, as Emily.

"Um, hi," she says, clutching a small bag with both hands in front of her knees.

She looks sort of miserable, like she's just turned up at a party only to find out she's not on the guest list and has been left to stand outside in the bloody cold.

"Uh – yeah, hi." You're stood in front of her now and she doesn't look miserable as much as uncomfortable. Uncomfortable and fucking beautiful, of course. "What the hell is going on exactly?" You try, and fail, not to look at the way the night chill has reddened her face and ear lobes.

You're still looking around for Effy, even though a suspicion has started to churn sickeningly in your gut. And Emily just shifts from one foot to the other and says, "Um, actually –"

"Look, I don't suppose you've got Effy hid in your luggage?" you cut in, and she just bites at her lip, shakes her head. "Right. Suddenly I feel like I'm in the middle of a fucking bit on the _Graham Norton Show_."

"I'm sorry, this wasn't," she struggles before stopping, pulling at her scarf to tighten it around her neck.

"I don't mean to be a prick," you say, casting a nervous look over your shoulder, then looking back to her. "But, I've got a car waiting."

"Oh, right. Sorry."

"It's okay, I'm just guessing this could turn into a rather lengthy explanation. Plus I'm freezing my arse off after, like, three minutes so you must be a block of ice."

She laughs; you warm significantly from beneath your fuzzy hat and cowl.

"I am, actually, yeah," she chatters with small twitches of her chin.

In the back seat of the cab, it's worse than being stood in front of her. Because it's a confined space shared with a complete stranger, yes. But mostly because it's a confined space shared with _Emily_, who's managed yet again to knock you completely off your feet just by showing up. You give the driver your address then settle back into the seat with your hands clamped tightly together between your knees.

"So," she says, sort of speaking to the back of the seat in front of her, "this wasn't exactly my idea."

"Oh?" you manage with as much disinterest as seems humanly possible for the situation in which you currently find yourself.

Your mobile goes then, before she can answer, chiming from somewhere inside your winter coat. And the text from Effy only reinforces your urge to throttle her within a breath of her life. Since she's probably having a good laugh at your expense – probably had to work hard, in fact, at typing out the message for how much you imagine her cackling. And your fingers shake so fiercely from the thought, you don't even attempt a reply to her: _Has my package arrived safely? _and instead thrust your phone angrily back inside your coat pocket.

"Katie and Effy then," you say with a resigned sigh, and Emily nods slowly in response. "Put a gun to your head, did they?"

When you look over to her, she seems to have relaxed by a fraction since you're at least taking it all in stride. And anyway, your sarcasm has always had an oddly calming effect on Emily.

"Something like that," she smiles and takes a deep breath. "Let's just say, it's rather fortunate they were never _actual_ friends in college. They were lethal enough a combination having only hated each other moderately back then."

"Christ," you say looking to the front of the cab, and it's nothing but flickering brake lights and traffic signals. "You're really here."

"Yeah. I really am."

You look back at her then, wearing an expression crossed somewhere between confusion and agitation. "And, how are you here exactly? I'm sorry, it's just – you can't possibly be _here_. You can't possibly have come to New York, Emily, not considering –"

"I –"

The breath you hold is unavoidable.

Emily just clears her throat while eyeing the driver "—sorry, but can we talk about this back at yours?" And then looks back to you.

If she weren't so fucking gifted at pleading with her eyes, ripping apart your resolve and shredding you to the core with one, sodding look, you'd probably be more likely to say no. Or to demand more of her – the whole, fucking story, actually – right in the back of that cab.

Instead, you swallow hard and roll your eyes because it's what's always saved you in the past: some practiced façade of indifference. "Yeah, sure. Fine."

The cab falls silent then, until the driver begins speaking a quiet, foreign language into his bluetooth.

* * *

And then you're in your flat. Emily, more importantly, is in your flat. And you both just stand awkwardly in the room used as both your sitting room and dining area. She's looking around, taking in this space that's yours, just sweeping her eyes over everything. And you've never before felt so exposed by simple things like paint colours and framed prints. You don't bring up the essay, even though it's laid out in plain sight on the table to your right, where it's been for countless days. Even though just the image of it in your peripheral is making you perspire.

"It's really nice," she says.

"Thanks – sort of small, I guess." You look around and wonder if the walls are actually closing in or if it's just the onset of claustrophobia, and then lie for the sake of calming yourself, "But it feels huge compared to some of the shoeboxes I've lived in."

Emily just nods and looks anywhere, literally _anywhere_, but in your direction. It goes quiet for the next several seconds, and you can't think of an easy way to do this so you just swallow back as much fear as possible and grab at the lining of your coat pockets.

"Emily, look," you sigh and then watch as she drops the small bag she's been holding to her feet and finally looks across the small room to find your eyes, expectant and probably fucking terrified.

She shrugs, in this sort of adorably helpless way of hers and says, "I left her."

The room spins momentarily but you manage to say, "What?" without tipping over.

She smiles nervously, bites at the inside of her lip. "Not like, _just_ now. But, it's over. It's been over – for a month or so."

"Jesus. Emily, I'm so sorry – I," you're shaking your head, placing a hand to your forehead, "what about – what about Lewis?"

She smiles, less nervously you think, and says, "It's okay, thanks. And Lewis is – he's so amazing. Katie's helping me file for joint custody, so I think – yeah, I mean, I think we'll be okay. He's with Katie now, actually. She's been staying with me – took a leave of absence from her work abroad and everything – and she's just such a fucking natural with him, honestly."

You're mirroring her admiration, just smiling back at her like this is the sort of thing you've been doing for the past ten years – catching up on one another's lives while stood in your flat.

But then Emily takes a deep breath, says, "And Rose is still – she's still working on getting well. She's not quite there, but there've been ... improvements." And you just stand there for a long beat, trying to remember how to link vowels and consonants in order to form words.

"That sounds like … a lot," you finally breathe out. "That why you skipped town then? Needed some reckless, New York abandon?"

Making light of it seems like the only viable response since the notion of Emily being in Brooklyn suddenly pales in comparison to Emily no longer being with Rose. Your head spinning like mad, trying to compute any of it.

But she's not really playing along and instead looks rather distressed, shaking her head when she says, "Everything is so messed up, but I just – I needed to see you because –"

"I can't fix anything for you, Emily," and it's like your body can't decide on one, consistent emotion and continues to fluctuate along a maniacal spectrum. Because where you've just felt genuine concern for Emily and her broken family, you're now on the defensive. "Think I was pretty clear on that back in London."

"Actually," she says, crossing then uncrossing her arms, "I think it's _me_ that needs to do the fixing this time."

"Oh."

"There's so much I want to tell you, and so much you need to know, but, do you think we could – shit, I don't even know what time it is, but I'm fucking _starving_."

And then you just laugh, Emily following your lead, and for a moment nothing else matters except the sound of it filling your flat.

* * *

You order Chinese and Emily watches you make the call like she wants to comment on how you've just requested extra packets of hot mustard without her even asking for it, but instead just smiles when your cheeks flush. You flip on the television once the food arrives and sit with your legs criss-crossed on the sofa, an open box of bean curd and broccoli in your lap. Emily's always preferred eating take-away on the floor. So she's sat at your coffee table with a fork and plate and napkin, like she can still be civilised even if it's Szechwan chicken and egg rolls at 11:30 at night. And you wonder – with your chopsticks paused between a box of food and your mouth – if the habit is still remnants of Jenna's unwavering etiquette, or if Emily's just always known she's a clumsy eater.

Near the end of _Top Gun_, which was already half over when you'd turned on the telly [and felt too overwhelmed to find anything else to watch], you stand to take the rest of your food into the kitchen and reach for Emily's plate.

"Thanks," she says, handing it to you and wiping her mouth again with her napkin even though she's not been eating for almost twenty minutes.

In the kitchen, while stood at the sink and rinsing wide swipes of mustard off her plate, you decide: enough is enough. You'll ask her why she's here. You'll head straight into the room, turn off the pathetic distraction of Tom Cruise in aviators, and just fucking ask her. It seems absurd that it's taken you nearly two hours to reach this conclusion – that you could have been sat next to her or near her for this long without knowing much of anything. Without even _asking_.

But then you turn around and she's stood there in front of you, and you remember how that's all it's ever taken – being stood face-to-face with Emily Fitch – to disable you completely.

"I was just going to see if I could … grab a shower?" She's so tentative, hovering there around the entrance of your kitchen and pulling at the hem of her shirt sleeve.

It makes her look years younger, and your lungs constrict without warning when you remember a kiss you'd once agreed to a thousand years ago at some ludicrous excuse for a pyjama party. Your hands grip at the sink's edge behind you.

"Yeah, of course. I'll just, um, get you a towel."

* * *

While Emily showers, you pace your flat and send roughly sixteen texts to Effy, who you'll have to deal with later when you're not housing the ex-love-of-your-life. But berating Effy – even via text – is a good distraction to the sounds of running water that only lead to extremely dangerous places, like images of Emily _naked_. You've already changed into your most-conservative pair of pyjamas – long, cotton pants and an alumni sweatshirt from NYU – and pulled back your hair into a loose ponytail when you hear the bathroom door. It's a fucking joke, of course, that you've even attempted to brace yourself for her entrance into the sitting room. Because when she appears at the doorway, all the air in the room disappears into a vacuum. And you've got to work, a bit, at remembering to breathe while looking up at her. First seeing her bared legs [in some fucking, poor excuse for shorts], and then that old, grey tee you wish you didn't remember, small spots of darkening fabric forming near her shoulders from her freshly-combed, wet hair.

"Sorry if that took ages. The hot water felt so good I didn't want to get out," she smiles. The way Emily _always_ smiles, as if she hasn't just said the most seductive thing just by way of her soft, low rasp.

"Uh-huh," you say with eloquence and then clear your throat, standing from the sofa. "I mean, you didn't. It's fine, obviously." And you look away then, for fear your senseless ramble may continue the longer you look _at_ her. "So, I'm just going to … wash up, but there's fresh linens on the bed so you can head on in if you like. I'll take the sofa since it's kind of rubbish."

"I'm not going to take your own bed from you, Naomi. I feel bad enough having hijacked your weekend with Effy. And anyway your couch looks lovely."

"Absolutely not – you've just travelled for god knows how long. I can't let you take the sofa," you argue, sensing, out of nowhere, some familiar defiance. And it feels really good, crossing your arms while stood in front of her, smirking like you've already won. "And, in fact, I'm quite taller than you so you're just going to have to accept that what I say goes."

Emily looks to her left and her laugh echoes down the corridor, but then she's always been defiant in an entirely different sense, and you can see it – the way it glints dangerously behind her eyes – when she looks back at you. "I think you and I both know that your height has never paid you any particular advantage."

One step. Just one step is all it takes and you're stood far too close, encroaching on her until she's forced to step back, unsteadily, and puts one hand behind her to find the doorframe.

"You sure about that?"

Emily's expression, from where you're now looking down on her, is almost unreadable. The way her smile just keeps ghosting, slipping away, then reappearing, each time more uncertain than the previous. And once she's said quietly, "I'm not sure of anything anymore," your eyes just fall closed by way of self-preservation. So that you first feel her hands on your sides before looking down to see them there.

"Emily," you close them again, your eyes, even as your own hands, like magnets, move to hold her face. Cupping it delicately, your forehead tips slightly and rests against hers. "If I kiss you, I'm not going to be able to stop."

And she just breathes out, like relief, "Promise?"

It opens the floodgates. And the first bit of contact is so incredibly open and raw, you almost fall into her for a loss of equilibrium. Emily whimpers when your tongues first brush together, and your fingers tense against the back of her head, tangle further into her damp hair. She pulls at the bulk of your sweatshirt until you actually do fall forward, pinning her against the doorframe at her back.

"_Christ_, I've fucking missed this," you say, breathing heavy, against her mouth.

She kisses you again. Longer, harder, urgent for more of you. And you've not ever been able to deny her much of anything, not really. And especially not now. Especially not _this_. So you step back, bringing her with you down the corridor. And she follows you, pulling at the bottom of your sweatshirt until it's up and over your head, then deposits it onto the floor along the wall before pushing you into your room. You swallow hard at the way she's taking you in – eyes fixed on where your nipples have hardened through your thin vest top as she quickly moistens her lips before looking up to you.

"Fuck."

"What – what is it?" a slight panic starts pulsing in your chest.

"You're just – fuck, you're gorgeous, do you know that?"

She meets you halfway once your body – of its own volition – moves towards her. And then your hands move to retrace her like every touch is a memory that needed only the slightest prompting to be recalled. Because the skin of her stomach, you remember this. The muscles of her back, flexing beneath your fingers, you remember this. Everything goes a bit frantic as you move on to the bed, Emily pulling off her shirt and then yours, and you can't even begin to anticipate the feeling of her skin against yours before she's pressed to you. It's almost reminiscent of that first time, the way Emily takes control. The way you let her. But she's far less confident than you remember her, and the movement of her hands feel uncertain as they skate along your sides. When her breaths along your chest and neck are shaky, you reach out for her hands, thread your fingers between hers.

"Hey, hey." You wait for her to pause, look back to you from where she's sat straddling your lap. "You alright?"

She nods, not at all convincingly. And you smile, like you've not smiled in years.

"We can just … take it slow, okay?"

Emily seems to relax then, and smiles back when she says, "Easier said than done."

But it does slow. And it's so lovely, the way you move together – still so synced, even after so much time, even during the awkward moments – because you're fully in this. You're _both_ in this now. A sharp emotion tightens in your throat when you realise just how lonely you've been without knowing. Your grip tightens on her shoulders, and Emily just responds by kissing you so sweetly, you have to work hard to keep tears from spilling out. She slides off just slightly to lie at your side, moving one hand between your breasts and onto your stomach, which then flutters at the contact.

"Is this okay?" she asks, her fingers teasing near the elastic of your pyjama bottoms.

You don't answer her because you're still not sure, at this point, about the stability of your voice, and instead reach for her hand, guiding it down until she's touching you. And you clench shut your eyes when she gasps and begins to move her fingers. You're close to climax so quickly, it would be almost be embarrassing, if it weren't Emily, who probably knows your bits better than anyone.

Who must also know that by saying, low and desperate against your ear, "God, you feel so fucking good," will make you come undone entirely. Which you do, buried close to her neck and shoulder.

You recover just as quickly though, sliding off the remainder of your clothes and reaching for Emily's because there's so much more of her you need to be touching. And she just lays back against the mattress, watching as you remove her shorts and knickers in one go. She opens her legs and you lie between them, covering the length of her body with your own. You move slowly up and back, pressing yourself to her as she pulls against your neck until your lips find hers and Emily whimpers against them.

She thrusts up against you and bites down, tugging on your bottom lip. Which is really all the encouragement you need. You don't even pause at her neck, a favourite erogenous spot you've missed terribly; or her breasts, even though they're perfectly raised in these enticing peaks. Because you can't be slowed or distracted by much of anything that doesn't involve your mouth between her legs.

"Oh fuck, Naomi. _Fuck_," she says desperately once you've touched her, tasted her.

You want her all at once – pulling her closer by your hands, wrapped around her thighs – and you want it to last for hours, your tongue not really able to decide on one, steady rhythm. But it doesn't seem to matter since Emily's breathing and groaning is indicative that she's close to coming regardless of your erratic movements. And then she does, just cries out with one hand in your hair, the other grabbing at your duvet. You watch her, panting, gradually relaxing. You feel her, wet and pulsing.

When you crawl up to lie beside her, the back of your hand swipes along your chin where it's sticky and wet. Emily rolls over to face you and then reaches out with her thumb, wiping moisture from your top lip.

"I can't believe that just happened," you say, breathing more regularly now. "I never thought I'd get to –" and then you stop, smiling with your mouth clamped shut.

But Emily is smiling too and says, "Yeah, I know. Me neither."

Her eyelids blink slowly, like she could fall asleep at any moment. And there's so much to say – so much you're scared to face. But it's hardly the time, and no matter what's bound to happen, and no matter what's left to be said, you won't broach any of it now. Because you don't want anything to tarnish this moment. Even the truth, whatever it is.

So you just pull back the linens, crawl beneath them and lift your arm. "Come here." Without hesitation, Emily curls into you, tucking one arm like a tiny wing between you and wrapping the other around your back. You pull her in close, rest your chin atop her head where it's pressed lightly to your chest.

And then quietly, sleepily, you hear her say, "I've missed this too."

* * *

**Post Script** [see what I did there?]: So, worth the wait? Do tell! Cheers, SM


	14. Chapter 14

It's Saturday. You know it's Saturday because, even before you've opened your eyes, the day just has a very Saturday feel to it. So you can't quite figure why the fuck an alarm is going. But then, dragged reluctantly from sleep, you register it's not an alarm but a mobile. Not yours even, but –

_Emily_.

You feel the shift in the mattress before you've dared move – what you imagine to be Emily reaching for her phone – and then it goes silent again. One deep breath, one bold move really, and you roll over towards the centre of the bed to face her.

"Hi." Her voice, croaking and groggy, is even more lovely than you remember. And then it's not just any Saturday but the best one you've had in years.

"Morning," you smile.

"Sorry if that woke you. It was Katie."

"S'okay. You need to ring her back then?"

Emily's eyes are sleepy. Her hair sort of unkempt. Her breasts sort of _exposed_.

"Yeah, I should, actually," she says, flushing a bit and pulling at the sheets when she's noticed your eyes drifting.

"Got a pretty good look at them last night, you know," you smirk, arching an eyebrow and cocking your head towards her now covered chest.

She smirks back, kicks at your shin beneath the sheets and misses completely. "Yeah well, still feels a bit … odd, don't you think?"

"What – having you in my bed? Naked? Don't think '_odd_' even begins to cover it."

Emily's light flush darkens by several shades as she nervously tucks unruly strands of hair behind her ear. "So, what, um. What now?"

"Well," you take a breath, exhale through your nose, "you need to ring Katie, and I will quite literally cease to function if I don't have coffee within the next thirty minutes." She smiles at that, and you think that possibly, it's the best she's ever looked. "So, take your time in here, yeah? I'll just get the kettle on."

"Okay. Thanks."

You're about to slip out of bed when you pause, propped up on an elbow and narrow your eyes at her. "If we're playing fair, no perving while I locate my clothes. Got it?"

Emily's smile brightens when she laughs until she tries to kerb it, pressing her lips together. "Wouldn't dream of it."

You can't remember the last time you felt this awkward in your own, fucking bedroom, but your limbs are uncomfortably shaky as you hastily reach down to the floor for your clothes.

"You're looking," you say, stepping into your discarded pyjamas, your back to the bed. When you turn to face her, your vest top now pulled back on, Emily's sat up a bit, leant against your pillows with a cheeky smirk.

"Sorry," she says without an ounce of real sentiment.

So you just smile back and tilt your head. "Liar."

* * *

Halfway through your first cup and two paragraphs into an article your friend Walter wrote for _Esquire_, Emily appears in the doorway and lingers there, like even after twelve hours – several of which were spent unclothed and in the same bed – she's not yet figured out how to act within your flat. You've been repeating, in your head, the same question in a hundred different sequences, none of which seem to sound quite right. None of which really feel like the right approach to figuring out why, unsolicited, Emily sent you some terribly lovely piece of writing; or why she then crossed an ocean to see you without warning; or why, perhaps most dauntingly, the pair of you thought it wise to shag, on a whim, like a couple of horny teenagers.

Of course your pre-mediated speeches have always landed so famously once you're looking straight at her, so you just end up asking, "Everything alright?" and set your mug of coffee down on the low table in front of you.

"Yeah," she nods. "Yeah, everyone's fine – Lewis has been 'angelic,' or so says his aunt, who's opinion of him is of course only mildly biased."

"Of course," you smile, and glance back at the magazine in your lap before tossing it to the sofa cushion next to you. "Coffee?"

"Yeah, I'd love some," she says, and then doesn't move, even after you've stood and closed the five or so paces between your sofa and where she's stood. You're about to move past her when the sound of her voice startles you to a halt. "Can I just say – thanks?"

"Thanks?" you echo, now lingering just as awkwardly, in the corridor between your kitchen and sitting room.

"Yeah," she's pulled both hands behind her back and leans against them, along the doorframe. Big, doe eyes darting about as she speaks. "I wasn't really sure what to expect, you know – coming here, totally fucking uninvited, and not having heard from you at all since, well – but you've been, I mean, it's been really, um, nice."

Her nerves are actually palpable, the way she's not even looked at you for more than a split second at a time, even though she's speaking _to you _and you're stood no more than a half-step from her. It's so ridiculously attractive, seeing her like this, you have to physically stop yourself from doing anything embarrassingly eager – like throwing her over your shoulder and hauling her back to bed.

You're not sure it's any less eager, but leaning forward to kiss her seems like something she should at least be expecting, given that she's essentially just thanked you for sleeping with her instead of throwing her out into the street. But then it's okay, you think, when she's smiling as your lips touch.

When you pull back, a long breath later, and tell her, "You're welcome," she still looks a bit dazed but exceedingly less anxious.

In the kitchen, you pull a mug off a high shelf and fill it with still-steaming coffee from the French press, a gesture that's less about chivalry and more about Emily being so petite she'd never be able to reach the cups anyway.

She takes it between two hands and smiles a 'thanks' to you before asking, "Got any milk?"

"I don't do much dairy, actually, but there's almond milk in the fridge if you like."

Her brow does a funny kind of contortion and she's eyeing you with this amused expression when she reaches around and pulls open the fridge door.

"What – you've gone vegan now or something?"

"No! 'Course not – I just – it's good alright?"

Emily then starts reading aloud the labels on your food – not at all interested in the carton of almond milk, apparently, which is in plain, fucking sight on the top shelf – and the intrusion has an uncomfortably voyeuristic feel to it even though you're storing incredibly ordinary things like organic carob buttons and vegetarian meatballs.

"Taking stock of my fridge now, are you?" you ask, trying to lessen the defensive tone in your voice.

"Well, you drink _almond milk_ – just trying to see what else you've been up to in the last decade."

"And you're going to deduce that by way of my food and beverage consumption?"

Emily, laughing, and still perusing says, "Yeah."

"You could always just _ask_ me, you know."

So she stands upright again, where she's been hunched into the fridge, and turns to face you with her arms crossed and a challenging arc shaping her brow. "Alright then. What have you been up to?"

You don't have time to stop and process whether or not it's even fucking true because the words are out of your mouth that quickly. Though there must be some honesty to it, even if you've not ever acknowledged it.

And basically once you've shrugged, "Waiting for this," any amusement once playing across her face vanishes, and Emily just stands there, in the cramped space of your tiny kitchen, and looks at you for what feels like a very long time.

But then she's pushing against you sort of forcefully – her hands to your hips – until the small of your back lands against the sink's edge. And it's not as if you've any time to prepare for that kind of impact so you let slip a surprised '_Oh!_' before her mouth makes contact with yours. And if Emily were urgent last night, she's well, fucking _greedy_ this morning because her hands move without hesitancy to slip beneath both layers you're wearing until she's fanned one hand across your stomach and moved the other to palm your tit.

It feels good in a way you're not expecting and your body just reacts on instinct, moaning into her mouth and pushing back into her, your hands sliding through the soft curls of her hair. Emily slips a few fingers into the elastic of your pyjama bottoms and just tugs until you're stumbling forward from the exertion, being led into the corridor. She's headed for either the sofa or the bed, you think, and either one seems like a rather splendid, fucking option at the moment. For the second time in so many hours, she's wrestling with your tops, discarding them along the floor as you haphazardly guide her backwards. Emily stumbles only slightly when her heel kicks against a leg of the coffee table, and you'd maybe been able to keep her from the offending object had she not moved a hand into your pyjamas and between your legs, cupping your now damp underwear.

She's not really deterred though because in another step, Emily spins so that she's forcing you back against the sofa and climbing on top to apparently finish what she started. Not until she's made eye contact does she remove her tee shirt, and you just watch her and take deep breaths while you're able. Because no sooner has she tossed it to the floor is she laid down on you, sucking one nipple until it's so taut it almost hurts, all the air leaving your lungs at once. Her hand, the one that's already been pressed against your knickers, moves towards that spot again, this time beneath the fabric, and any attempt to stop her fails miserably around the time her fingers start circling your clit.

There's a conversation you're meant to be having, you're sure of it. A topic of high importance that could very well determine your future – with or without her. It's bloody imperative that you talk to her and even more so that she talk to you – give you a long-overdue explanation on how exactly it is that she's barrelled into your life again without warning.

Instead, the conversation you're having turns a bit raunchy, explatives flying out of your mouth at a rate that would embarrass even your mum. And you stop giving a shit about cause and effect or responsibility or consequence, concentrating solely on removing your pants as quickly as possible because Emily's just begged something along the lines of 'I fucking need you in my mouth.'

It doesn't take much effort on her part, because no one's fucked you like this in ages. And no one's ever fucked you as well as Emily. So when you come, it's hard and loud and almost, bloody cathartic or something for how light and lovely you feel directly after. Emily's still kissing along your inner thigh as you lay there watching her, catching your breath and considering only briefly poor Walter's article and how it's glossy magazine page beneath your bum is probably ruined now.

"You alright?" Emily asks quietly, once she's fit herself into the crevice between you and the back cushions of your sofa – a space so small, only she would find it comfortable.

"I don't really know how to answer that." Your voice still has this uneasy lilt, but you're trying to pull it together because - fuck, you _have_ to.

She's placed a hand laid flat on your chest, and with one finger traces the small dip in your clavicle. "Because you need to know why I'm here."

"Among other things," you sigh. "I mean, Christ, I don't even know how long you're planning to stay."

She says quietly, "I fly out tomorrow."

A kind of crushing feeling hits your chest, making it hard to breath in, so you just exhale instead, "Fuck, Emily."

"I know. I'm sorry – I didn't mean for any of this to happen, I just –" her short laugh is like a quick puff of air against your skin "—I think my brain like, short-circuits when I'm around you or something."

"Yeah," you say. "I know the feeling."

"And then it's like I can't remember any of the reasons why we shouldn't," she stops with a long sigh.

And so you finish for her, "But there are, aren't there? Reasons we shouldn't?"

She doesn't answer you, just wraps her arm along your stomach, tucking her hand beneath your ribcage and squeezes once.

"What are we doing, Emily?" When she still doesn't answer, you finally push up on one elbow with a sigh, jostling the crook in which she's nestled. "Come on then," you say, and then sit up fully until Emily's forced to sit up as well, disentangling your legs in the process. "Let's get you that coffee, and then _we_," you motion between the both of you with a finger, "are having a chat."

And Emily just nods, a little sadly, like a small child that's just been told playtime is over.

The knock at your door comes just as you slip back into your pyjama bottoms, and Emily just stands topless beside you, mirroring your look of surprise.

"Expecting someone?"

"No," you say, drawing out the word slowly while looking towards the door of your flat. "Although, seems to be a running theme this weekend." You turn around, only after Emily's jabbed you in your ribs, to find her eyes narrowed and her mouth working to keep from smiling.

It's a look so irresistible, you feel an immediate urge to lean down and kiss it right off her face. And since your entire, fucking life seems to have turned on its head, it's precisely what you do.

There's a second knock, mid kiss, which finally propels you into motion, and you follow a trail of yours and Emily's clothes into the kitchen, like you're bloody Hansel and Gretel.

"Do you want me to start the kettle again or something?" she asks, pulling her tee shirt over her head.

"Sure. Thanks," you say, and then pause, after you've slipped back into your vest top and sweatshirt, to watch Emily fill the kettle at your sink.

And you shouldn't let your mind go there – to that place that wants to believe this could be it, and that it could be good. To that place where Emily's domesticity makes your heart swell like some soppy newlywed. But it's almost unstoppable, the way your restraint has always been complete shit where Emily is concerned.

So it's not until Emily's looked over her shoulder at you and says with some insistence, "_Door_," that you snap out of it and leave the room.

You've practically forgotten that you have a life outside of Emily Fitch, her roaming hands, and her crooked smile. You've practically forgotten that it's not a Bristol autumn, that you're not seventeen having fucked off Maths to hide out in your bedroom, naked and laughing and getting tangled in your bed sheets.

But then reality has always had a way of confronting you in tidal waves.

"Hi."

"Oh, hey. Hi." You've pulled the door back at an angle, still holding its handle with one hand and have leant your hip and shoulder against it. "I didn't – um, did we have plans?" You squint at her, rubbing your temple.

"No, sorry, I was just down at the shop, and I thought I'd –" she lifts her hand where a white box in a plastic bag is hooked on one finger "—well, I brought you a slice of Brooklyn Blackout." Your eyes widen and she smiles. She's always had a nice smile.

"Oh, well, thanks." You take the bag from her. "Bit rich for breakfast, but –"

She looks you over, her smile slipping into a smirk, and you loathe to think how you must look and absently reach up to touch your hair.

"Some of us were awake before five, you know," she quips. "Eleven-thirty feels like a late lunch."

_Shit, nearly midday and not even a full cup of coffee_, you think. _Fucking Emily and her grabby, __fucking _hands.

As if on cue, it's Emily's voice you hear next, just over your shoulder from the doorway of the kitchen. And you turn your head when she says, "Hey." The next few minutes unfolding like the plot of some poorly-written sitcom.

"Oh, hi" Emily says [cheerily, because honestly the girl just can't help it] once she's seen your guest, who then responds with her own surprised 'Oh, hi' while you're left sandwiched in-between. Emily gives you a quick, sidelong glance when she's come to stand next to you at the doorway.

"Um, this is Reagan," you fumble with a small gesture towards the girl on your doorstep. "She's just popped by to bring me some, uh, cake." You chance a look over at Emily, waiting to see how she's assessing this entirely random encounter. But she doesn't miss a beat, and any reaction or suspicions she might be having are well hidden behind her smile.

"Hello," Emily beams, extending her hand and Reagan takes it, smiles back. You do a quick mental calculation as to _which_ hand Emily's proffered, given what's just transpired in your sitting room, but brush the thought aside quickly when your face grows instantly hot.

"Oh, _shit_ – it's Ellie right? I totally spaced on your friend being here," Reagan says, and you're still trying to figure out on which count to correct her first: the fact that you don't have a friend called Ellie, or that this isn't at all the friend _Effy_, whom you'd told her about previously.

"It's Effy, actually, but it's fine," Emily answers with a wave of her hand, as if she's been fielding this confusion on a name that isn't even _hers_ for her whole life, "I get that all the time."

You look over at her incredulously, indecisive between asking her what the fuck she's on about and fully thanking her for the quick improv. Because introducing Emily as Effy is so obviously an easier feat than introducing Emily as _Emily_.

It goes quiet for a few agonising seconds where you know you're probably meant to invite Reagan in or say _something_, at the very least. But you just stand there, like a muted mong, and hope that the floor might swallow you up.

"Well, I should get going," Reagan says, rocking back on her heels with her hands stuffed into her deep coat pockets. "But it was really nice to meet you."

Emily just keeps looking over at you, like she's worried that you might've _actually_ gone retarded, but then looks back to Reagan as she speaks.

"Don't be silly. I've just started some fresh coffee – stay for a cup, yeah?"

"Right," you finally manage, clearing your throat. "You should come in for a bit – it's got to be fucking freezing out there."

"It's not bad, actually, but you know I can't turn down coffee," she laughs.

"Lovely," Emily smiles. "Girl after my own heart." She steps back and holds out an arm, ushering Reagan into your flat and essentially boxing you out of the entire scenario. "Plus, anyone who pops round with cake," Emily continues, following after Reagan but casting one, last look back at you, part amusement, part intrigue, "is definitely someone I'm interested in getting to know."

Emily and Reagan disappear into the kitchen as the front door clicks shut, your weight collapsing against it even as your head tips back and you exhale helplessly, "Fucking hell."

* * *

**Post Script:** So, um, yeah. Don't be cross? You're all very pretty? Next update might just be 4,000 words of pure dialogue, but I can make no promises. I can't help it if Naomily prefer shagging to talking, alright?! Now I've told you. And so on.

I can't even with your simply lovely, lovely reviews. And ... marriage proposals? Yeah so, well, you know the drill. Carry on. Cheers! SM


	15. Chapter 15

**Author's Note:** Well, that took longer than expected.

* * *

Outside the front door, your bare feet already cold and tingling even through the doormat on which you're stood, Reagan says, "Well, Effy is incredibly awesome. I felt really stupid showing up here at first, but it was really great to meet her. And she's not quiet at all – I don't know what you were talking about last week."

Your answering smile is a bit resigned as you bow your head because, _Christ_, this is a conversation you actually can't avoid.

It's through a long sigh then that you look back up to her. "Reagan, Effy didn't come to New York this weekend."

"What are you talking about?" she asks in that way where early confusion always leads to small bits of uncomfortable laughter.

"When I got to JFK last night, Effy wasn't there. But," clearing your throat, "_Emily_ was." And then, for emphasis, you tip a shoulder towards the door at your back.

"I don't get it," she says shaking her head with narrowed eyes and a fading smile.

"Emily's an old friend from college, or high school, whatever, just not the one I was expecting. Not Effy."

"You're going to have to do better than that, Naomi." Reagan crosses her arms, which only makes her demand feel that much more intimidating, even though she's not raised her voice at all and is still kind of smirking.

And she's right on that – you're going to have to do so much better – because of the two you'll be having today, this is so clearly the easier conversation.

"I don't really know why Emily pretended to be someone else," you try again, feebly stumbling over any words with more than one syllable, "except off the look of panic on my face, she may have thought she was doing me a favour or something."

"A favour? I seriously have no idea what are you're talking about."

It's warranted, her frustration. You're doing a shit job of explaining a pretty basic misunderstanding. And it's not going to be any less awkward the longer you beat around it. Anyway, once upon a time, being unapologetically blunt had been more like second nature.

"She's an old girlfriend," you rush out, placing a hand to your forehead, an anxious habit you've never broken. "Sort of _the_ old girlfriend, actually. The first and – most significant."

"Oh."

"And when she saw you and me and, I don't know, the bloody cake – I imagine she was trying to save me from having to explain to someone, well, someone like you, why she's here in Effy's stead."

Reagan smiles, a small, kind of sad one, and looks away for a minute. "Right, someone like me."

"Sorry, but I'm not really sure what you are to me, or what I am to you. I mean, we're friends, but – not really the sort of thing you discuss after three weeks, is it?"

When she looks back to you, her expression is less wounded and her smile – the nicer one, the warmer one – is back. "And what about _Emily_?" She says her name kind of exaggerated and drawn out, a subtle reminder that she's not going to easily forget that you've just had her on for the better part of an hour. "What's she to you?"

"Reagan –"

"I'm sorry, that was really rude and none of my business, actually." She waits just a beat, then adds, "But, I mean, you guys keep in touch?" Because the curiosity must be killing her.

"No," and then with emphasis, "_no_, not at all, actually. I'd not heard from her or seen her in ages. But then I had an opening in London, and we sort of … stumbled into each other again." Reagan nods, just once, like she might be piecing things together, except that the subsequent string of events makes absolutely no sense at all. "When I left in September, though, and came home, I didn't hear from her again – until yesterday." No sense mentioning the essay since even you haven't a clue what the fuck it has to do with anything.

"Oh my god, so she just showed up? Without calling you or anything? Who does that?"

_Emily Fitch does_, you think. _Emily_ fucking _Fitch_.

You nod and cross your arms, lean back against the door. "Yeah that was pretty much my reaction as well."

Reagan's look of sudden shock and exasperation softens then, and she regards you with something you've not ever seen in her before.

"You're happy she's here though?"

"I – I don't know what I am," you say, shaking your head.

"No," she says more quietly. "No, I wasn't asking." There's a kindness to her tone when she says, "You're happy, Naomi. I can tell."

Unable to answer straight away, you pause, wondering how it is that this continues to happen. How people in your life seem to read you so effortlessly when it comes to Emily. First your mum at the kitchen table in that old, yellow cottage, back when you're certain you never wore an expression of anything other than misery. And again Effy, in London, recognising the return of some, old emotion you'd buried far away, on another continent. You can't help feeling self-conscious then, of your own transparency.

So you just say, "It's complicated." And then your laughter, like a bark, echoes through the empty corridor, because fuck, is that ever an insufficient word. "It's so far _beyond_ complicated."

"So that makes me," she narrows her eyes, though not maliciously, more like she's searching for something she expects to find written on your face. "The uncomplicated option? The rebound?"

It's such an unfortunately primitive word: _rebound_. And not at all what you've ever considered her to be. So immediately, you start shaking your head in opposition.

Still, she deserves the truth, even if you're only capable of a small portion. "You've been … a distraction. A very lovely and welcomed distraction."

You watch her exhale, looking off down the corridor. You wait for her to again meet your eye, but she doesn't before saying, "I'm gonna go."

"Reagan, look –"

"But, call me later if you want to talk."

"Wh – really?" And seriously, when did every aspect of your life become so maniacally unpredictable.

She's smiling when she looks back at you. "I can't be your _distraction_, Naomi, but I think I can be your friend. If you want?"

"Thanks," you say, barely audible, because it's not easy receiving kindness from a person to whom you've just admitted being a completely selfish tit.

Only after she's left, disappeared down the stairwell, do you realise the bottoms of your feet have gone completely numb.

* * *

"She's nice," Emily says once you've returned to the sitting room, exceptionally bright now that the clouds have broken apart, and sunlight always pours through your front windows at this time of day.

"The feeling is apparently mutual." You take slow steps towards the sofa, Emily looking far too relaxed wrapped in a blanket at one end.

"So is she – I mean, you two are –"

"We're friends," you sigh, plopping inelegantly onto the other end of your sofa. "Nothing more than that, if that's what your implying."

"Really," Emily eyes you suspiciously.

"Yes, _really_," you say with a pointed look. "Whatever we might have been, or whatever I'd considered pursuing with her, has expired – rather abruptly." Along the fabric of a sofa cushion, your fingers trace patterns that aren't there; and when you look back up to her, realisation is registering all across Emily's face.

Timid and perhaps a bit embarrassed, she says, "You told her I'm not Effy."

"Keeping up false pretences with my friends isn't really a habit I'm trying to form. Why would you do that in the first place, Em?" you ask, smiling.

"I don't know," she laughs, turning her face into the back cushions. "But, you sort of looked like you might vomit or something, and I just panicked. I've already ruined your weekend with Effy, and the last thing I wanted to do was ruin anything else." She looks down then, towards your hand that hasn't stopped moving against the cushion. "Though, clearly I've managed to."

"The only thing you've managed as far as Reagan is concerned, is to confuse the shit out of her. But, we're still friends, I think. She's great, and I would probably wed her pastries if it were legal, but anything more than that probably would have been a mistake."

Emily looks at you again, not even attempting to hide her relief. And she's always sort of been this contrast between achingly beautiful and incredibly sexy, but _Jesus_, you've forgotten how overwhelming it can be just to _look_ at her. So you turn away, lips curling up beyond your control, and say, "Anyway, I think it's safe to say you haven't _ruined_ my weekend."

Emily blushes, laughs into the blanket where she's wrapped it around her left hand, the result of which nearly crumbles the last of your resolve to have this sodding chat. But, you're well aware that procrastination [and shagging, for that matter] will take you only so far. If you've retained anything from sixth form, it certainly wasn't _Hamlet_.

"Good," she says after a moment and presses her lips together when her chin comes to rest on the knee she's got tucked up to her chest.

"So."

"So," she echoes.

"This feels a bit weird."

"Yeah, I know." Emily exhales heavily and sits back. "I don't even know where to start."

And you sort of laugh then because, "You got on a plane, Emily. You crossed a fucking _ocean_. Why not start there?"

She laughs a bit too, then brings both knees up close to her chest, hugs them there, looking impossibly small under the bulk of your yellow, fuzzy blanket.

You're still thinking about the size of her – how she was always useless at simple tasks like grocery shops [high shelves] or finding you in crowded parks [limited field of vision] – when she says something so massive, so _heavy_, you can't imagine how she hasn't collapsed from the weight of it.

"Katie thinks I should tell you that I'm still in love with you."

You don't recover, not even a little, before she adds, "And Effy," she won't look at you when she says it, fiddles instead with the loose stitches of your blanket where it's frayed. But you know what's coming and tense on instinct. "Says that you're still in love with me."

"I think I liked it better when Effy barely spoke and your sister was repulsed by us." Your tone is flat, but Emily's smiling when you look back at her.

She's also expectant. She's also nervous when she asks, "Are you?"

"Well, are _you_?"

Emily's features soften as she tilts her head by the smallest fraction. "You really have to ask?"

"This is _crazy_, Emily." Your hands feel cool where you've pressed them to your face, covering it to avoid looking at her and applying pressure to your eye sockets.

"Crazy is seeing you walk into a coffee shop after ten, fucking years. But, everything else – everything that happened between us in London and me ending up here, sat across from you and realising how so little has changed – just seems like … par for the course."

"Things _have_ changed."

"Not anything that matters."

"You have a child, Emily. With someone else."

She smiles, kindly, and something about it sets you on fire. "I'm aware."

"And I live in New York."

"Naomi …"

"And you live _in London_."

"Yeah okay, so we've got shit odds at making this work."

"Emily, there are shit odds and then there's us." You've dropped your head back into your hands, shaking it helplessly. "It doesn't work like this."

"What doesn't?"

When your head snaps back up, you can actually feel the blood pumping through you. How it's quickening, a dam cracking open and soon everything will rush out. "I have a life here – a job and friends and a routine, and a flat that I really like."

Emily nods slowly. "Okay."

You fling your hands into the air, let them fall onto your legs. "And you just show up, turn everything on its fucking head, and expect that – what? What did you expect this would solve? What do you want from me, Emily?"

There's a throbbing in your ears, some pulsing that hasn't stopped since hearing Emily say '_I'm still in love with you_,' and your voice, though you're attempting some control, is more frantic than anything. But Emily just keeps this calm – breathing easily, speaking slowly, obnoxiously retaining the yin to your yang. And though you almost wish she'd just flare up, go mental, and help oxygenate the combustion building inside your chest walls, the sound of her voice is like a balm to every open wound she's just ripped open. It doesn't seem fair that she can be both your affliction and relief.

"I want you to come back home. I want you in London. And I want you in my life on a permanent basis," she says, easily, like she's just ticked off a list of films she'd like to see. "But, my being here isn't about what I want. It doesn't matter what I want if you don't want it too."

You want a strong drink. And a fag. And perhaps a time travel device to go back and _not_ give into your craving for caffeine on that sunny afternoon in early August. None of that is actually true. Looking at her now, knowing you'd not avoid any of this given the opportunity, it can't possibly be true.

You _do_ actually want a fag, but you've quit them [again] and have been quite consistent in resisting your urges because, although the partial pack is still tucked away on a bookshelf, you haven't had one since –

"I want to know why you sent it."

"My essay?"

"We don't speak for over a month and then –" you stop, remembering the day, remembering Emily's font on the envelope, remembering the first time your eyes fell to the page "— it's a curious way to communicate with someone, don't you think?"

"We've never talked about it – Manchester and all that – but I needed you to know that is wasn't," Emily pauses, takes a purposeful breath, "I fucked up. And I needed you to know that. I figured it out too late, but I still just needed you to know."

You feel a sort of empathy for her then, that she's been carrying this around. That she's been haunted by some decision she made back when choosing poorly was basically a fucking rite of passage. You've carried a similar burden over the years, some leftover part of you that will maybe always take responsibility for cocking things up where Emily is concerned simply because you'd done it so well for so long. At first it _was_ her fault, all of it. Then it was no one's – just some twist of fate that left you both miserable and alone. Now, maybe it's something shared. You feel almost lighter at that, like the weight of whatever you've been hauling about won't be so tasking if you're doing it together.

"It was a long time ago." It doesn't say enough. But then, maybe you don't have to say everything all at once.

"For what it's worth at this point, I'm sorry."

"I know." You smile for a moment, hoping Emily might join you but she still looks incredibly apprehensive, and you then realise you've now avoided not one but _two_ major questions she's been brave enough to ask. "I'd do almost anything, you know, once you've asked. I have a kind of weakness for saying no to your face."

Emily swallows down the start of a smirk, and you could strangle her really, because of course she already knew this about you. But her face falls again quickly as you continue.

"But, I can't pick up and leave my life here, Emily. I can't go back to London just for you. Not _even_ for you."

Her voice wavers just barely in protest. "It's not the same, as before. It's not Manchester, and I'm not –"

"No, it's not the same," you interject softly. "And _we're_ not the same. So, let's not make the same mistakes, okay?"

Emily fidgets from under the blanket, stretches out her legs then pulls them back, tucking her feet under her bum.

"And is this – being with me, I mean – is that a mistake?"

"Rarely, if ever."

She relaxes a bit, her face does anyway, and finally allows herself a barely-there smile.

"But," you continue with a long sigh, "you've just gotten out of something pretty massive, and I need some time to sort this. We both do, I'm sure." She looks like she wants to argue, but you push on. "Rose is still in your life, Emily, and that's not likely to change. Regardless of what's happened, not very long ago you had a whole life with her. You were _in love_ with her."

Emily doesn't answer, just looks away towards the kitchen.

"Hey," you finally say to her after a long minute.

When she meets your eye, there's a desperation there you're not prepared to see. "I can't do this again, Naomi. I'm trying _not_ to make the same mistakes – and giving up on us, letting you fucking disappear, I won't do that again."

You then say, sounding spectacularly ironic, "I just think we need some time to slow things down a bit – I can barely get a grip on what's happened in the past 48 hours, for fuck's sake. And I need some space to gather perspective on this. On everything. We can't afford to be reckless." Rolling your eyes once Emily's arched her brows, because you've certainly been nothing _but_ reckless since she arrived, you append, "From here on out."

"How much time? How much space? What does that even mean?"

"You're leaving tomorrow – I reckon the distance between here and London will suffice."

She's not pleased with your answer, the agitation showing raw in her tone. "And time?"

You shrug, look quickly to the ceiling then back at her, amazed at how she's still never adjusted to not getting her way. "I don't know. Is there some kind of expiration date on your willingness to wait?"

"No – _no_, that's not what I'm saying. I'm not going to feel any less for you in six months than I do right now. I just don't want to waste any more time being without you."

"Thought this wasn't about what you want."

Her entire frame slumps as she exhales in what sounds like defeat. "It's not."

"I don't want to walk away from this either, okay? I just – I want to be sure we're doing what's right for us both. And, I think that means taking some time to sort everything that's transpired in the past few months."

"You're right, I suppose."

"I have a tendency towards making that habit."

Unamused, Emily says, "You're also incredibly, fucking smug."

It feels like you've just pedalled up some monstrous incline, and your smile towards Emily's feigned annoyance feels like coasting down the other side.

"Part of my charm, yeah?"

"I'm not finding you particularly charming at the moment, no."

"So, you'd not be inclined to say 'yes' if I asked you to dinner?"

"You want to take me to dinner?"

"Yes. I'd like to take you to dinner, Emily Fitch."

She cracks a smile – the crooked one that means she's not yet willing to concede to it fully. "I guess I wouldn't loathe the idea."

Since you're on kind of a roll, since there's no promise of ever again having a weekend like this with her, you also tell her, "There are a few other places I'd like you to see – if you feel up to it?"

"Yeah, okay," Emily says, no longer showing any signs of contempt – feigned or otherwise – and instead regarding you with the kind of warmth of which only her eyes are capable.

You look outside and do some quick mental math before asking her, "Think we could be ready to head out in an hour or so?"

Emily shrugs, sort of nods her head in several different directions, and says, "I don't see why not."

So you stand and tell her, "I've got to get a shower." And she just nods again from where she's sat.

It takes you five steps to reach the corridor and another three before you've entered the bedroom where you strip down and grab a towel you've left on the hook of your closet door. The amount of time between leaving Emily and returning to poke your head around the entryway of the sitting room, wrapped in a blue towel that's pinched closed at one side, can't be more than three minutes. Still, the decision to do so took even less to formulate, just a handful of seconds really.

"You coming, or what?"

Emily's face does this lovely thing where it's part shock, part excitement, part uncertainty, like she can't quite figure if you're asking seriously. But she uncloaks the blanket anyway and spins to put her feet on the floor.

Practically laughing, "What?"

The thing about snap decisions – there's so often very little thought put into them. And since you've not really gotten past the part where you proposition her, you just roll your eyes and turn back down the corridor towards the bathroom. The spray starts with a pleasant hiss, and you're still adjusting the temperature of it, waiting for the water to warm, when Emily shows up behind you in the doorway.

"What the –"

The kiss doesn't land square on, and you sort of catch the top lip more than anything, but it shuts her up all the same.

"What happened to taking it slowly?" Emily asks when you've stepped back just slightly. And her concern is almost genuine, if not for the way she's still looking at your mouth and clutching one hand to your towel.

"Yeah, alright," you say, pulling Emily into the room and letting the towel drop, the steam already billowing up and over the glass doors. "We'll go slowly."

* * *

**Post Script:** Please send bouquets and chocolates and Garibaldis and bottles of whiskey to **niceoneblondie** without whom this chapter might have never been completed. I'm sorry the update took longer than usual, and I can only hope it's not been a total letdown. In the interim, I assume you've all just been looping the Top 5 vid Lily did that went viral the other day? I thought as much. Cheers, you lovely people!


	16. Chapter 16

**Author's Note:** This is pretty short, but so am I.

* * *

In the back of a taxi, somewhere between your flat and Prospect Heights, Emily takes your hand, rests her head on your shoulder. And though you've seen her climax at least three times in the past 36 hours; though you've sat and shared your feelings on some of the darkest parts of your lives; though she watched you – sweetly yet still unabashedly – dress for dinner; it still feels like the most intimate act you've shared, during a taxi ride, with Emily's thumb rubbing softly to the back of your hand.

You'd not gotten to show her everything on the list – and the fact that there's _actually_ a list makes you blush a bit even now, even though it's dark and Emily's not looking anyway – but you'd not ever expected the chance for any of it. So you try again to stop hating the unjust rate at which time passes.

Emily had taken the bedroom to dress and ring Katie while you busied yourself elsewhere, having always taken less time to get ready than her. And it's not as if you can't be trusted to be in the same room as her while she latches her bra and selects a clean pair of knickers. You're not a crazed sex monster, for fuck's sake. But you've also not had access to Emily's bits in fucking ages, and the temptations to keep her in a perpetual state of undress, are apparently best warded by leaving the room altogether.

You'd found the list while scanning the bookshelves in the sitting room, scrawled at the back of some, old sketch pad in different coloured inks. The old book is something from university [the _second_ time around]. Something from that first year, when New York was equal parts terrifying and mesmerising. When you'd convinced yourself that learning to live a life without Emily would best be done in fragments. You'd removed yourself from her life upon request – vanished sort of brilliantly without trace, your mum sworn to absolute secrecy – but never asked Emily the same courtesy. What's good for the goose does _not_ always suit the gander. And so you moved away from the idea of her at a slower pace. Thought of her on long subway rides. Cried from the separation while doing coursework in your bed. Hung old photographs in your very first flat – the ones you'd always favoured from that first summer. When you'd finally learnt to let go a bit, and your smile is always genuine and Emily's eyes are always so bright, and you half-wonder how the two of you didn't end up breaking the camera lens from the sheer force of your infatuations.

The list started then too, around the time you got adventurous about this new city. And you'd wander about on Saturdays when your head would hurt and your hand would cramp from taking notes on art history for three straight hours. Originally, the sketch book came along as a sort of prop. It felt less weird sitting in parks and riding on trains if you looked deeply occupied with something. But then you'd turned up at Grand Army Plaza one afternoon, in search of the park, and you'd thought of her. How Emily's eyes would've turn deliciously deviant, how she'd have grabbed your hand and in rushed whispers devised a plan to crack the locks and scale the massive structure from the inside. You'd have stood beneath the giant arch and let her corner you into the shadows like a couple of trained conspirators. "Tall buildings are meant to bend at great heights to keep from breaking," she'd say, "can you imagine, a slab of cement and stone that's pliable?" And you'd have gone along with it, grinning at the scheming tone in her voice as it dropped octaves lower than should be possible. You'd have agreed to any of it, all of it.

"I'm so hungry," Emily says, her head bouncing just once when you laugh.

"You're always hungry."

When her head turns, the challenging arc to her eyebrow is unfairly seductive. "I've been particularly active today, yeah?"

The taxi lurches as the driver nearly avoid collision, and your hand reaches out to catch the back of his seat on instinct. "Jesus," you breathe out, because placing your life in these drivers' hands day after day still catches you off-guard from time to time. And then clear your throat when you look back to Emily. "Surely a bit of walking hasn't exhausted you, has it?"

"No." The lights from the cars flash red against her face and hair, her cheeky smile. "Not the walking."

* * *

Emily orders sangria and you think of Old San Juan, of the music and the dancing and the sandy freckles that began to appear on her shoulder caps after so many days in the sun. You must blank out for longer than intended because when Emily's hand finds yours on the table top, you can tell she's already tried once to get your attention by the way she says, "Naomi."

"Huh?"

"I asked if you've had any of the quesadillas. I'm thinking of the tinga."

"Oh," scanning the menu, you locate the item and look up to find her bent over in concentration. Her bottom lip pinched between her teeth. "Braised _pollo_, Emily? Whatever would Jenna say?"

She's rolling her eyes before settling on a musing look just over your left shoulder. "Should my mum find out about this weekend, I'm sure my dietary choices would be the last of her concerns, yeah?"

"Right," you say with a small nod, smiling despite your lips clamping shut. "I've not had the chicken, but everything I have had here has been excellent. Besides, have you ever met a meal you didn't devour regardless of its culinary merit?"

Emily, who's smaller frame has never appropriately represented her monstrous appetite, shrugs and leans back into her chair. "I love food."

"Yes, I'm aware."

"Katie says hello, by the way."

"Everyone managing?"

Emily laughs. "Yes, I think so. Katie apparently coerced Effy into a Saturday shop, and Lewis took an instant liking to her."

"Her wiles have been known to have that effect on the opposite sex."

Her face scrunches even as the toe of her boot finds your shin beneath the table. "Oi! That's my son you're talking about."

The drinks arrive while your laughter dies out. Emily takes her first sip with closed eyes, makes a sound of appreciation and licks her lips. It's a deep purple-red, like wild cherries, and thick with fresh fruit. It'll stain her lips and tongue, you think; by the third drink she'll be fishing out the orange slices with her finger.

"So, how exactly is this meant to work?"

You've taken all of three sips of your Modelo when Emily launches into it.

"How is _what_ meant to work exactly?"

"I'm leaving, Naomi. Tomorrow."

"Yeah," you answer, readjusting the napkin along your lap.

"And," she insists, "I don't want to lose you again."

"You didn't lose me, Emily," you say without thinking, because censoring yourself has never really been a strong suit, "you told me to go."

The restaurant is rife with activity, people busying about with plates of hot food and trays of drinks. But when Emily's face falls, everything stills around you and your breathing echoes – slow and hollow – like you've plugged your ears.

"I'm sorry." You can't reach for her hand. She's got them tucked into her lap.

"Don't say that. I did this, Naomi. You've nothing to be sorry for."

And then you offer with a small shrug. "Maybe neither of us have to be sorry anymore."

* * *

It's much later than it should be, given Emily's flight the following morning. And you're much drunker than you'd planned to be, though it doesn't matter since your inhibitions haven't bothered intervening on much of anything since the moment Emily showed up. She looks ridiculously lovely, wrapped up in your bed sheets, lying across from you.

Her voice is soft and her skin is warm where your arms are touching. "Tell me something."

"Tell you what?"

"Tell me something I don't know."

And you can still see it, the way her fringe would fall across her forehead. The way her hand, still nervous back then, would reach out to right it, brush it from her eyes. So you say, "I miss your red hair."

She laughs, which had been only a small portion of your motivation for saying so, and says, "Are you serious?"

"Yeah, kind of."

* * *

You think she could be asleep because it's been quiet for a bit, and you can feel how her breathing's slowed where you're wrapped around her from behind. You could slip off at any minute as well, utterly knackered from one of the craziest weekends of your entire life.

It's not more than a whisper when Emily says, "Naomi."

Your eyes flutter open and then fall shut. "Hmm?"

"What Effy told me, about you – is it true?"

There's not much space between you – sharing a pillow and all – but your arm flexes just enough to pull her closer. Your lips find the skin of her back, her bared shoulder. And really, Emily had said it best; so you echo the sentiment and tell her, "You really have to ask?"

* * *

**Post Script:** Are we still liking this? Do tell. If I've not yet responded to reviews it's because I've been horribly distracted by real life, but I solemnly swear to right these wrongs immediately. And to those guest reviewers [namely, **naomilyfan**, who is all sorts of wonderful] my thanks goes out to you as well!


	17. Chapter 17

**Author's Note:** I'm not entirely certain what this update accomplishes, if anything, [and isn't that a great way to reel you in: Hey - this chap could be shit, please do read on!] but I promised to get something posted to a few people so here it is. And though it may _seem_ as if the story's not progressing, it really is, though probably painfully slowly. But if you don't know this about me by now: script + angst = OTP.

Thanks for all the support on the last chap [and every one preceding, really]. Sometimes a gal just needs an extra dose of encouragement and you lot never, ever disappoint. 'Fire' is officially one month off, and I'm trying very diligently to finish this fic before it airs for fear the writers' new version of Naomily may scar me/us/the universe forever; and I'd hate to have my writing influenced by anything in S7. That being said, I'm shit at finishing anything in a timely manner so let's just hope 'Fire' doesn't shatter me completely.

* * *

You wake to a sensation that's so familiar, it's easy to forget for quick seconds that anything in your life has changed since turning seventeen. The soft pads of Emily's fingers skate down your neck and shoulder, finding their way to your elbow and back again. It's a bit ticklish against your skin, but Emily's always found the right pressure to wake you without your arm jerking away, instinctually, from the touch. Your eyes open – one and then the other – squinting a bit against the morning light, and Emily's hand pauses midway to your shoulder.

"Morning," you yawn, reaching to bury it into the corner of your pillow. "You've been awake?"

"For a bit."

Her face, always incredibly peaceful upon waking, looks uneasy. So you ask, "What are you thinking?"

She leans into you, places her mouth where your jaw meets your ear and whispers, "Come to London with me." And then pulls back, just enough to catch your eye.

And you're smiling when your hand slides along the warm skin of her stomach, comes to rest on her side. "Yeah, alright."

Her reaction snaps from shock to scepticism in a blink. "I don't remember you ever being so easily persuaded."

She holds her breath, bites her bottom lip when you've swiped a thumb across her nipple. "Well, then you also don't recall how my being propositioned while you're _naked_ puts me at a terrible disadvantage for rational thought."

"I'll have to make note of that." She moves into your touch, placing her mouth again along your jaw, and your pulse quickens.

You've begun to snog rather heatedly, all that lovely morning skin that's still so warm pressing against each other, when Emily's mobile goes and you pull apart at the sound of it.

"Sorry," she pants, extracting herself from where you've gotten tangled and reaches back for her phone. Emily clears her throat before answering. "Hi, Katie."

Nothing like an intrusion from Katie Fitch to fuel your frustrations; but then you remember a call from Katie means news of Lewis, no doubt. And as you watch her, you can see where the cracks have started to form. Tiny fissures in a brittle epidermis. Abruptly, you remember that you've unfairly placed Emily in a world that doesn't really exist – or, she's put herself there, it's moot at this point anyway – where it's you and her and no one else. Where you eat late dinners and drink until you please, gigging in the back of taxis about nothing remotely funny. Where you wake on lazy Sundays and shag until early afternoon. But the walls of it – this place where you've both sort of hidden away – are penetrated effortlessly by the sounds of Emily's voice as she speaks to Katie about where to find extra nappies and altered sleep schedules. The destruction of it is imminent, and you've only just remembered its instability.

"Thanks, Katie. I'll ring you when I've landed." Emily smiles over at you, reaches for your hand, which she plucks up easily since it – like the rest of your extremities – has gone suddenly numb. "Put him to the phone so I can talk to him, will you?"

You turn then, slide your legs from under the blankets so your feet hit the cool, wooden floor. A few toes graze a pair of black knickers while your arm bends behind your back at an awkward angle where you're still allowing Emily to hold your hand. The surface of your tongue feels tacky against your teeth, like the moisture's not gone completely just enough to make you feel a bit sick. And your temperature is both hot and cold, sweat gathering along your upper lip even as a chill runs down your bare arms.

Emily ends the call and you swallow hard, shut your eyes against the feel of her hands on your skin.

"Where are you off to?" She's back to the Emily from before – playfully seductive as she draws long lines down your spine.

But you can't un-know it: that there are two of her now. The Emily made for Lewis, who came about, in part, because of Rose. And the Emily who's come back for you.

"Coffee," you say after lightly clearing your throat.

"Coffee can wait, yeah?"

It's not yet been 48 hours, which doesn't seem like enough time to have fallen back into this early morning banter so seamlessly. Where you push for routine and responsibility, and Emily, incredibly persuasive and determined, pushes you back against the mattress, convincing you with her mouth and with her touch why skiving off [any number of things] is in your better interest. But then, when she's tugged where your hands are still joined, and you turn to look down at her, you think, _it's been far too long_.

And if you'd been certain of anything, while stood in front of her in that coffee shop all those month ago, it's that where you and Emily are concerned, _time_ is fucking irrelevant.

"Yeah, 'course it can." Emily's face is brightening as you say it, and her smile is widening even as you lower back down onto her.

It can all wait. You repeat it like a mantra, pushing back the doubt that's crawling over your skin like ivy, threatening to strangle every ounce of you that wants this. That wants Emily. And moving your thigh between her legs, pressing into her, feels like breaking free from it. Grabbing fistfuls of her hair is like snapping vines. When Emily hums into your neck, when she stutters moans into your mouth and against your tongue, you think, she wants this. _We want this same thing and that's all that matters_. You want to tell her that nothing else matters. And so you take what you want, and Emily lets you, she listens. She lets you say it all. You've kept these separate lives, become different people. You've grown up and grown apart and learnt new ways to live, found new ways to love. _It can all wait, it can all wait, it can all wait_. There's no room for words – this small cocoon you've built already splintering apart around you – but Emily watches intently as your fingers slide into her because you're saying it all to her this way. And she's listening.

Emily comes hard, you feel it ripple through her beneath your weight, legs twitching, skin damp, fingers pressed hard into your shoulders. But then she's crying in short, uncontrolled sobs, looking to you as the tears brim and roll down her temples. You watch her, face fallen and flushed, and you know everything you've just told her is a lie.

* * *

Over coffee, an unsettling quiet, not unlike Emily's first few hours with you, falls over the flat. You think about all the things you're not saying, all the intricacies between you that have only compounded over the past two days. It's a kind of self-preservation then, when you push them away, like unruly strands of hair that keep finding your eyelashes, and look to her. She's got one leg tucked up onto the chair where she's sat, pinning it against her chest and the table. The track pants she'd asked to borrow are too long; the hem on that leg hanging low and nearly covering her entire foot even though you know she's got them rolled at the waist. It used to be like this. It used to be all you knew – Emily in your clothes and at your breakfast table, drinking her coffee with loads of sugar and cream.

"What?" she asks, and you realise only then that you've likely been looking at her, dazed and dreamily, for quite some time.

And you sort of flush, looking back to your own coffee because sentimentality has never felt very natural to you _even_ where Emily is concerned. Even when you can't help yourself. "Nothing. Just remembering."

"Oh?"

"Yeah." You finally look up at her, smiling even though the heat is still in your cheeks. Even though Emily looks like she's about to make you expound on the memory, but it seems better than the silence.

"Anything in particular?"

You take a sip and shrug. "My mum's house, I guess. Just – you spent quite a lot of time there, didn't you?"

Emily's entire demeanour warms at the mention of your mum and you almost have to close your eyes to stop them from rolling dramatically at the pair of them. _Bloody chums from the start_, you think. Even when you'd been too stubborn, and then too scared, and finally too possessive to allow Gina any part of Emily, they'd found their way.

"Can you blame me?" Emily asks.

Your mind drifts then to her house and even just the memory – distant and vague, though not any less terrifying – of Jenna Fitch, makes you shudder. "Hardly."

It's Emily who looks away then, and you're scared you've resurrected some old demons for her, because it's not as if those first couple years when she'd come out to her family had been jolly or anything. But instead she's asking, "Will you be seeing her then – your mum – for Christmas?" And you're left completely unprepared to answer her. _Again_.

You can tell she's bracing herself for your response, already clinging to the hope that old ties to Bristol will reunite you in another two weeks. That you'll spend a cold afternoon bundled up and widow shop in Clifton Village, stop for hot chocolates when your noses turn red. That you'll drink mulled wine in Gina's kitchen until the whole house smells of nutmeg and cloves.

"Mum's fucked off to New Delhi, actually." And Emily looks up at this. "She _claims_ it's about enlightenment, but I've got a suspicion there's a bloke somewhere in that equation."

"Right." Her smile is kind of forced, but then the crease in her brow is quickly followed by her teeth finding that bottom lip. "So then, I mean, I guess you'll just –"

She doesn't want to say, 'you'll spend it alone because you've got fuck-all for family other than your mum.' And it's sweet, her still trying to spare your feelings on the topic of familial units, as if it's still a sensitivity you'd even recognise. As if that part of you hadn't gone calloused years ago, long before Emily and her squeaky-clean representation of family [mum, dad, brother, twin] showed up. But it's hard to mourn something lost if you never had it to begin with.

"Well, I was _meant_ to spend the holiday with Effy." You let it linger there, your thought, because to finish it would be to say something mordantly truthful about killing her on the spot, though Emily might not see the humour in it. But also because being with Effy means being in London, a trip you'd planned to make without Emily ever being clued in.

Except everything's changed now [an understatement of epic proportions].

"Oh," Emily says with a few, quick nods, trying desperately not to let her expectations show; though her eyes – even when not cast in your direction – give her away every time. "Well, that'll be good. For you, I mean, not having to spend it by yourself."

"I may end up by myself should I find Effy's bloody, satisfactory smirking to be grounds for murder."

Emily winces slightly, but you think she'll recover from the implication when she says, "You'll not be too hard on her?" and there's the hint of a smile playing at her lips.

"I'll reconsider the manslaughter, but I'm returning at least one of her gifts."

She laughs while you begrudgingly smile into your coffee cup, and the quiet that follows isn't at all unsettling.


	18. Chapter 18

**Author's Note:** Since you lot are so patient and so lovely, I've [somehow] managed to make this chap a bit longer than the last few. And, since 'Fire' is only two or three weeks out, you can imagine I will not be finishing this story prior to. So, keep your fingers crossed [and vaginas on] that the outcome doesn't ruin me completely, and with any luck this story will just carry on as planned. I'd NEVER have finished this chap without the help of **pitapumpkineater** nor the sheer musical genius of **6seatertable** so thanks, thanks, thanks to the both of them.

* * *

"They'll kick you out, Em." It's not unkind, her tone, and it's something you're still getting used to – this version of Katie that can be firm without shouting. That can be caring without also trying to control your entire life.

And, she's right. You've not just stopped doing the work, you've stopped showing up entirely. Anything that exists outside the four walls of your bedroom seeming impossibly daunting, university included. She's sat near the foot of your bed, and you can smell coffee drifting into the room through the open door. But your back is turned on her, and the scent, and the flat, and life in general. For the first few weeks, she's softer and gentler than you've ever seen her, coming in to coax you from the room occasionally, though with little success.

But then, she's still Katie.

So in the midst of your third bleak and sullen weekend, her tactics have shifted and she's throwing back the blankets and pulling up the shutters, with little-to-no delicacy. "It smells like sweat and spliff in here, and I didn't fucking move to Manchester to live with someone who has less personal hygiene than James Cook."

Dejectedly, you manage to say, 'fuck off' into your pillow. And it's almost alarming, the sound of your voice. You grab for the blankets again, but Katie's quicker and rips them off the bed entirely.

"I'm not sitting by and letting you ruin your fucking life over this, Emily." She's bundled all the bedding in her arms and is stood by the door, determination screaming from her face and stance. "I know I sound like an arsehole, but –" and her face breaks then, just enough so that her tone is less affronting when she finishes "—I mean, you ended it. You told her to fuck off, yeah?"

You've been propped on your elbows, staring angrily while Katie goes about dismantling your little cave of self-loathing. And you'd rather stay angry because at least it feels like something productive. That emotion, at the very least, is enough to boil your blood or tense your jaw. And feeling something, _anything_, is better than the emptiness that's held you hostage for weeks. The way your body's been brutally hollowed out, left a pathetic, sagging carcass of skin and bone. But you can't hold onto it, the anger, and start to cry instead because you did end it. And you did tell her to go; but that's hardly the point anymore, is it?

Katie moves back into the room with a huff, dropping the laundry at her feet and sitting on the bed. You don't turn away but into her, resting your head on her knees while she brushes hair from your face.

"Christ, Emily." She sounds so helpless when she says it, just an exhalation really, you can't help but wonder how you're expected to survive any of this if even Katie's lost hope.

After some time, the tears stop, and you've started to think the ducts must be losing supply. That one day you'll just dry up entirely, and won't that be a fucking relief. "What am I supposed to do, Katie?" you croak out, your mouth moving against the cotton of her leggings.

She sort of half-laughs as her hand comes to rest on your side. "Honestly? At this point, I'd be happy if you just showered and, like, changed your underwear regularly."

The shower doesn't help since there's still remnants of her everywhere – the soaps she liked that you still use, the coconut shampoo that she insisted reminder her of the Caribbean even though you never once had tropical drinks in coconut shells or anything. And lathering your arms and legs feels like covering yourself with Naomi all over again. _She'd have dumped them into the drain by now_, you think. All the memories, all the things infused with you – the stupid shower products – she'd not hold onto them. But then, she's not ever been some bleeding-heart romantic who associates pain and suffering with love. Who thinks the harsher the burn, or the darker the bruise, the truer the feeling. _She's too logical for all that nonsense_, you think, and then have to swallow hard to keep from crying again when you imagine all the parts of you she's already discarded.

* * *

Chelsea and Anna recruit all of your friends to help them pack up their flat, since they leave for Portugal the following Monday, and disguise the ploy for free labour as a farewell party. You've attended all your classes for a solid week, begged your way back into a few, and have spent almost all your free time at the library, buried under stacks of books and papers. You've even stopped smoking spliff [for the most part].

"You're fucking coming, Emily. They're some of your best mates, and they're, like, _leaving_ the country."

Katie's getting dressed into clothes you're fairly certain belong to you, and you have to think hard to remember the last time you saw her in something garish like animal print or fishnet stockings. You're trying to bunk off the party since you've had a mostly drama-free week. So to end it by spending a long evening inside a flat where your ex-girlfriend has lived for months seems counterintuitive to that kind of progress.

"I'll have lunch with them or something, alright? I just don't think I can do it – I can't be _there_."

"She's not going to be there."

It doesn't matter. She's still everywhere, even when she's not around.

"Am I complete dick if I don't go?" You lean back into the mattress, hold your weight with the palms of your hands.

Katie eyes you through the reflection in the mirror and then turns to face you with a contrite smile. "You've sort of been a dick for the past two months, Em. I don't think you _not_ showing up will be much of a surprise at this point."

Your sister used to say the most horrible things. She used to cut quick and deep, her words often leaving you staggering from their infliction. She used to scream and shout, really rough you up when you were still as flimsy as a tea towel. But somehow, the kinder her tone now, the more it stings.

"Right," you sigh. And then nod a few times to convince yourself. "Right."

* * *

If you'd have known it'd be your last conversation, you'd probably have tried for a bit more levity.

But there's never been predictability between you and Naomi, no script to guide you through stolen kisses, cat flaps, broken hearts. And you've always kind of been okay with that: the unknown. It's never affected you the way Naomi had been so frequently thwarted by it in the beginning. It isn't even that you'd been more sure than she had. Truthfully, it was probably your _not_ knowing, your _not_ grasping the actual gravity of you and her, that allowed you to follow after her so diligently. That made it easy to want and to love and to declare so openly.

And you've not learned a thing, apparently. Because you're still laying it all out in desperation. And still, you don't know _anything_.

"Emily, you've got to calm down. You're – you're scaring me." She sounds too calm, too rational. It only sends you into further hysterics.

"I can't – I can't fucking calm down! You fucking – you've just fucking _gone_, and you won't tell me where, Naomi. How am I supposed to stay fucking calm?"

It's not raining now, but it has been for days, leaving everything chilled and soggy. There are leaves under your feet, squishing and sliding with every step as you pace outside Chelsea and Anna's flat. And your pulse is racing and your chest thudding and you understand now why people so often confuse blind panic with cardiac arrest. It had taken at least seven tries, maybe more, to get her on the line, and you can't decide what's worse – the endless ringing of an unanswered call or the sound of her voice.

"I couldn't stay there. And you told me –"

"I know what I fucking told you. _Jesus_, why does everyone feel the need to keep bloody reminding me like I could somehow forget?"

She sighs and it sounds loud in your ear, over the noise of passing cars.

"It was too hard, Emily. It was just –" her voice is less stable then, and you cling to it, that faltering emotion. Press the phone closer to your ear and shut your eyes. "I need a different space right now, okay? Everything is shit, and Manchester is always going to mean … _you_. I can't be there without being …"

She sniffs, and you fall against the wall behind you. The building's brick is cold and damp and scratches the small of your back where your top's ridden up.

"It just wasn't working, my being there. I think I need – I need a change, you know?"

The air is chilled and dense with moisture, causing shivers to ripple through your arms and shoulders. Katie hasn't found you yet, but she will soon. She's been clocking you the entire evening as you'd distractedly folded up boxes and attempted genuine smiles when Anna made jokes or Chelsea brought you drinks. The news didn't come from either of them, nor from your sister, as it probably should have. It came instead in passing – some peripheral conversation floating around the flat about 'that girl from the arts shop that skipped town and left a note.' You're momentarily distracted by that realisation, that they all knew for god knows how long, and kept it from you. 'For your own good,' they would say. But there isn't anything good left, you think. Not for you.

"Em?"

"Yeah."

"I'm –"

"_Please_. Don't say you're sorry. I can't hear it." You take a few shuddering breaths, bite cruelly onto your bottom lip until you think the skin is broken. "Why didn't you – I mean, you didn't even say goodbye, Naomi."

She's quiet for long seconds, even her breaths [assuming she's not holding them] are unheard. But then she clears her throat and speaks with a little more resolve. "I didn't want to do that, Emily." And you're about to contest until she says, "I don't know that I'll ever really be able to."

* * *

The fact that she's got sandy blonde hair and hazel eyes with an air of intrigue, immediately pales in comparison to the eloquence with which she speaks on Angela Carter. And postgrad is nothing like university lectures in that you're not in some grand hall but sat around a circle with fifteen others while she floats about at the centre of everything. You'd be scratching out notes or scanning the text if you weren't totally captivated by her every movement. Not wanting to miss a single expression. Memorising the way her mouth makes shapes out of words like _shadow_, _magic_, and _villains_.

It's not the first time in recent years you've felt that familiar swirl of arousal, of instant attraction, but it _is_ the first time it's not also been coupled with guilt. _An improvement_, you think a bit ruefully, _that's taken only two, fucking years_. Rosalind is striking in that she seems out-of-place in academia, far too beautiful to also be clever, to also be so passionate about prose and syntax. So it's not long before you're completely infatuated, thinking incredibly inappropriate things in the middle of lessons that result in you crossing your legs to dull the throbbing between them.

Katie phones once a week now, like clockwork. Always from some faraway country, in some city or small town that you'd never be able to place on a map, and even her voice sounds distant. But she's found something she loves, something at which she excels; and you know that Katie's more surprised by it than any of you since she's gone practically her whole life pretending to be fabulous while believing instead that she's rubbish at everything.

"Your professor, Emily? Really?" Her laughter does little to mask the warning in her voice.

"It's just tea, Katie. And anyway we're discussing my final project so it's not any different than meeting in her office, is it?"

"Who are you trying to convince exactly – me or you?"

"I'm not jeopardising anything, okay? I'm just – curious." You flip a pen through your fingers, quickly weaving it back and forth like a nervous habit. It's the effect she has on you – some sparked energy of anticipation – this professor with an easy confidence and reserved smile.

"If you say so," Katie sighs, and then insists for the hundredth time that she's fallen in love _for real this time_ and his name is Nanak – that he was born with a collapsed lung and cleft palette but the brightest eyes she's ever seen. That she won't leave Nepal until the papers are signed and he's officially hers for keeps.

And you can only smile, indulge her persistence with a grain of salt. Because she falls in love more now than ever before. Because in every village, there's a child to whom she'll cling and nurture and swear to love exclusively. But then she's needed elsewhere, her work never settling for long, always moving. And she'll care for other children, she'll experience the births of a hundred more. She'll fall in love again, and again, and again. Katie won't ever have children. She's broken that way, the doctors had told her all those years ago. Katie won't ever have children – she can't carry them around in her uterus the way she expected. She won't ever have one child or two or three, she'll have them all – all the ones left unwanted, uncared for, most needing of love – and leave it to your sister to find a way around biological deficiencies.

When Rosalind insists you call her 'Rose' she does so with a hand placed lightly to your leg, just above the knee. When she rings you to say she's running late for coffee or for tea or for meetings in the garden outside her office, you close your eyes at the sound of her voice. At the slow cadence of it when she says, 'Emily.' When she kisses you that first time – and you're sure that it happens this way, that _she_ kisses _you_ because you don't take chances anymore on girls, on _women_, who you think might fancy you – it's very soft and slow. She doesn't rush a thing, just sort of settles there in front of you and moves her mouth against yours in a kind of lovely way that relaxes you completely. You go down on her the day before your last class, and then studiously avoid eye contact with her the entire lesson because you can't watch her speak about Blake's 'enlightened sexuality' without remembering the way her face had creased at climax.

* * *

Katie comes home and not just to London [where you've been since leaving Manchester] but to Bristol, where you've all gathered for Easter. She hasn't made it home for Christmas in over two years, and your mum's been smothering her so incessantly you consider barricading yourselves in your old bedroom just to get some alone time. But then Katie trumps your suggestion, nicks two bottles of mum's champagne, and hauls you out the back door of the house towards the park where you'd learnt to smoke your first fag.

You find the swings empty and settle there, rocking gently back and forth. She takes a long pull off one of the bottles, the other wedged between your knees and half-empty, and smiles over at you. "Ever think you'd be nailing an older woman then?"

"Shut up." Though you can't help from smiling so Katie only laughs harder. It's so good to hear it, her voice and her laughter, up close.

"Do I even need to ask whether or not you aced that particular subject?"

"Shut _up_." You're pushing against her shoulder, and then she just sways from side-to-side. You take a large mouthful of champagne and a thousand tiny bubbles feel like soft pin pricks against your throat and tongue. When you've swallowed them down you say, "I think you'll like her."

"It's going well then?" she asks, and you think you've survived the worst of her taunting for now.

"Yeah," you nod, tipping your toes into the dirt floor. "Yeah, it is."

Once you've drained both bottles, you and Katie are finding nearly everything hilarious and laid flat on your back on a roundabout. All the bright paint's been chipped away and the cold metal is probably filthy, but you find a strange longing to turn back up in Jenna's kitchen in dirty clothes just to watch her lose it. It's good you've stopped spinning because it's difficult enough watching the clouds shift above you, and if the tree tops were also in rotation you'd have to close your eyes to keep from feeling sick.

"I still think about her, you know."

Katie is laid out to your left at an angle where you can see only the lower half of her. You don't ever talk about her to anyone, not even Katie. But, maybe it's being in Bristol. Maybe it's getting half-cocked on champagne before sunset. Maybe it's this. Maybe it's that. Maybe it doesn't matter.

It's always an odd kind of remembrance. Like spilling too much malted vinegar on your chips and imagining how she'd laugh at your scowl before kissing your forehead and waiting in line for another basket. Like shopping with Rose and seeing a shock of blonde weaving through the rails of dresses before reminding yourself that Naomi would never, _ever_ be caught in Top Shop. Like waking with a hand on your hip and for fleeting seconds expecting it to be hers.

"I'm happy with Rose," you then say. "I think I love her, actually. But sometimes I just – I still think about her."

You can't remember the last time your sister was ever this quiet, and you almost sit up then to check that she's not fallen asleep when she sighs, reaches out and takes a few of your fingers in her hand. When she squeezes just once, it feels like the answer to a question you've not dared ask.

* * *

**Post Script:** **nonsequitur1416**, I bestow upon thee, your dearest Rose, as promised. I'm off to a BBQ - enjoy your weekends!


	19. Chapter 19

**Author's Note:** 7 days. 7 motherfuckin days. How are we all holding together then? Alright? Remember your breathing exercises. We will make it through this, mates. I'm sure of it. Skins 'Fire' has nothing on pinot grigio and MDMA brownies, yeah? Christ, let's hope not.

* * *

"Does this mean we're on speaking terms again?" Her voice is so smug, the self-satisfaction is practically saturating your ear through the mobile speaker.

"You're awfully up yourself for someone who's just played puppeteer with her best friend's life without consent."

"Isn't that the point – for tiny, wooden marionettes to dance about against their will?"

Tiredly, you tell her, "Stop fucking playing games, Effy."

"You're the one who started speaking in metaphor, _Naomi_."

"I needed you this weekend, you know."

"Bollocks."

"I fucking _did_ – what, now I'm not even capable of deciding my own _needs_?"

She almost laughs. Her tone, anyway, sounds humoured. "Is this really news to you?"

You've collapsed onto the sofa, and though it's still pretty rubbish, a quick survey down its length instantly resurfaces visions of Emily [in varied states of undress], which will now always make it a bit less shit. Not that Effy deserves to know that having Emily there has made anything better. Not that Effy deserves to know anything from you ever again, thanks very much.

"Naomi."

"_What_?" You sound spectacularly adolescent: defensive and tetchy. The tone you'd taken with your mum for all those years, reflexively. Like she were the worst kind of parent for empathising things like your heartbreak when she couldn't even bloody remember to buy groceries.

Except it's Effy and not your mum, so she sighs impatiently and says, "Whatever. Ring me back when you've gotten the fuck over it." And the line goes dead.

Turns out you're incapable of holding onto grudges where you'd once excelled in doing just that for years on end. And within the hour, you've got Effy's light laughter on the line as she tells you, "Christ, you've gone soft, Campbell." Because your voice's gone a bit shaky while apologising to her for overreacting, and Effy's apparently not above making you feel like an even bigger twat for getting so upset in the first place.

"You do know that it takes, like, a concerted effort to stay friends with you, right?" you then say.

Effy laughs with more sincerity then snaps her lighter twice, a satisfied inhale making its way through the line and then the slow push of smoke across the receiver. It sounds like resolution, and you relax instantly.

* * *

Before you leave for London – and you're still a bit in denial that you're actually going back to the place where your life _again_ turned on its head – you meet with Richard. He looks at you sort of curiously once you've pitched it, but he's always been rather ambivalent in regard to your career path and shrugs in consent without much questioning. He then rambles on about his holiday plans until you have to stop him with an apology for your own short schedule. Your flight's not for hours, but leaving enough time for one or two drinks before takeoff isn't the worst idea you've had in so many days.

He folds your proposal in half, stuffs it into his jacket pocket. "Well, have a good Christmas – we can settle the details on this when you get back."

"Thanks," you tell him and then lean in awkwardly when he motions to hug you across a tiny café table.

* * *

"Are you going to see her?"

Effy's flat feels different this time around. In that you're significantly more sober, yes. But there's also a kind of comfort in having arrived in London only to hide away at the top of a tall building. And it's not as if you're not itching to see her, but the relief is that it'll be in your own time. There will be no spontaneous appearances in art galleries or hotel rooms or Effy's flat, for that matter, since Emily's not got a clue where it is. And it must be plastered across your face – that ease, that absence of worry – if Effy's chosen this moment to bring it up. The way she's always waited for an unsuspecting reprieve to say things such as this. You love her, but you could also _murder_ her for how she's able to successfully manipulate your mood with six words.

"I haven't decided."

You're sat on her bed, in your pyjamas but still drinking wine, with a view of the city that feels like a slap in the face to your own flat back home. Effy joins you with a fresh bottle and raises an eyebrow.

"What is this then – payback?"

"No, of course not," you say quickly then take a drink more rapidly than planned which sours at the back of your throat.

"Well then?"

"Can't I just be … indecisive?"

"Nasty, little habit of yours." Effy winks, once you've looked over at her, and lights up a cigarette.

In the morning, Effy's gone but has left a note on the breakfast bar. Only after you've reached for it do you realise it was placed purposefully between an orange and a banana because it reads:

_Feel up to making any decisions today? Start small. Breakfast xx_

You crawl back into bed after chopping up the orange _and_ the banana into a bowl [because fuck Effy], and fiddle your mobile in-between bites of fruit. It's Christmas Eve in London, but you're not sure what day it is in New Delhi nor if your mum's got a phone with her because, as per, she'd been scarce on the details. You exhale then, through your nose, and rest your head back against the pillows because with Effy gone and your mum off meditating, there's only one person left to contend for your time. And, with the way your fingers twitch with an urge to dial her, it's probably a good indication she'd been at the top of that list anyway. It's just barely gone eight o clock, and Emily's already sent two texts the night previous that went unanswered, so she picks up on the first ring.

And then you don't have to weigh the decision any longer; the sound of her voice makes it easy. Makes your hesitation irrelevant. Because as soon as she's suggested you come round for a video marathon of old, Christmas favourites, you're not just answering 'Yeah, alright,' you're saying it with a smile as a pleasant warmth of nostalgia settles in your stomach.

* * *

You start to remember things about Christmases in Bristol, a flooding of memories you've not accessed in so long you almost question their authenticity.

James Fitch loves lesbians. In particular, he loves _you_. And while his routine about shagging or, at the very least, copping a feel to your tits, is getting tired, you've always sort of humoured his pathetic advances. Jenna, Katie, Rob, and _Emily_, specifically, do not. For the first two years, Emily tries to coerce you into Fitch festivities, failing miserably. But, after three months in London without her, you're practically crawling through catflaps to be with her – Jenna Fitch and her contemptuous scowling be damned. And if James' chat-up lines had been comical before, they're bloody _hilarious_ on Christmas Eve when he's squeezed himself into an old nightdress of Katie's. You're pretty sure he's done it for a laugh because he's not nine anymore and must understand, to a degree, that cross-dressing boys does not a lesbian make. He's certainly old enough to realise at least _some_ of the inner workings of sexuality because his voice is threatening to drop at any moment and cracks horribly when he says your name. And even though James' face goes up in flames at the sound, Emily's hardly deterred by any sympathy and kicks him mercilessly until he runs upstairs. As you watch him retreat, your heart goes out to him a bit, the poor, little pervert.

You're still stood at the door where James had discovered you upon opening it with an, 'Oh shit – you actually turned up!'

Emily returns her attention to you a little out of breath and a great deal flushed, and you immediately wish you didn't always have to associate those two things with her being _naked_ as soon as Jenna appears in the doorway of the kitchen.

"Emily, what's with all the bloody yelling – oh. Naomi, hello."

She's at least able to stomach salutations at this point, though the tight smile stretching her features looks incredibly painful.

"Hello, Jenna. Happy Christmas. Here, um my uh, mum offers her holiday cheer," you say, fumbling to hand over the bottle of wine Gina had forced on you.

Then, at the very least, Jenna looks as uncomfortable as you feel. _Small victories_, you think, and cut your eyes back to Emily who looks equal parts impressed and amused.

"Come on," she says while Jenna tries to work up a quiet 'thank you,' and hauls you into the sitting room just as you've kicked off your boots. "You've got a present to open."

Katie looks up when you enter, her face softly lit from the glow of the television and the lights on the tree.

"Hey," you say sitting down beside her, a bowl of popcorn between you. "Mind if I …" Your hand hovers above the bowl and Katie rolls her eyes.

"Whatever."

It wouldn't be right if Katie treated you nicely, or even _nicer_, just because of reindeers and starry nights. It'd be unpleasant, probably, and the last thing you need is anything else to make you feel awkward on an already uncomfortable evening. Besides, you can't really blame her, considering Jenna's unwelcoming attitude setting the bar. A fish rots from the head after all – something your mum likes to throw around when belittling the British government.

When Emily's fetched your present, you finally notice with a laugh, "Hold on, are you two wearing matching pyjamas?"

Katie studiously ignores you, her attention still rapt with what looks like _It's a Wonderful Life_, while Emily just plops down at your side and tugs urgently at the wrapping of your gift.

You raise an eyebrow at her, but she only shakes her head and shrugs. "What? They're not _matching_. Mine are green."

So you just laugh, look down to your lap. "Ems, I didn't bring yours. I thought we were doing presents tomorrow."

"This one's not from me. See?" And she points at the tag which reads _in her handwriting_, that it's from Father Christmas.

"You're so retarded," Katie says, not bothering to take her eyes off the telly, her inflection bored like she's just managed to channel Effy Stonem.

"Fuck off, Scrooge," Emily says happily, leaning across you for a handful of popcorn. Then, before funnelling it into her mouth urges, "Go on."

You carefully tear back the wrapping to find your very own pair of pyjamas [yellow, as opposed to Katie's purple or Emily's green], Emily delighted beyond belief at your sort of non-reaction and Katie annoyed as ever, when you haven't said anything more than, "Oh, god."

"Come on then, let's get you into them before we start the next video." Emily's already pulling you off the couch with so much genuine enthusiasm, you start to reconsider whether you've made the right decision in bending to her insistent invitation. Because wine and spliff with your mum has always been enough holiday fanfare for you.

And when Jenna appears near the foot of the stairs when you and Emily are about halfway up, you're almost certain you should have stayed home. Because she says, "Emily, I don't think it's a good idea – I mean, I don't know how I feel about the two of you up there, _alone_."

You freeze mid-step, afraid to look behind you. Though Emily, unimpressed, answers, "Relax, mum. You do realise I've seen tits before, yeah? Got a pair of my own even, haven't I?"

You do turn then – at least your head does – because there's a distinct sound of flustered stuttering, and you can't imagine anything better than seeing Jenna Fitch left speechless on Christmas Eve. But Emily's already pushing at your back, so you scurry up the remaining steps and down the hall towards her room until you're securely latched inside. At which point you push her against the door and kiss her like you can't stand the idea of your mouth doing anything other than this, ever again.

* * *

Katie answers the door and then quickly says, "Don't worry, I'm on my way out," smiling, hugging you into the flat, and closing the door at your back.

"Oh, I wasn't – I mean, I didn't –"

"I mean, Merry Christmas and all, but like, I've lived with the pair of you and played first-party witness to your reunions post separation so, yeah, no thanks." She's saying it with a smile all while removing your coat, and you're just stood there helplessly, your arms stiff and your face burning.

"Katie, it's not like –"

"Ems is on the phone – said she'll be off in a mo. Wine?"

You swallow hard, eyes still blinking like you've been stunned. "_Loads_."

Katie just laughs and turns away down the corridor so you follow because even if Emily doesn't surface to rescue you from her sister's commentary, at the very least there's the promise of alcohol.

But Emily finds you just as Katie's poured the wine, and every part of you that thought it didn't matter whether or not Katie fucked off for the night changes in that instant.

"Hi," Emily beams.

She's not close enough to be touching, and it's probably good because your palms have already begun to perspire.

"Hi."

Emily takes a step closer, has to raise up on her toes and hold onto your arm to kiss your cheek, and your heart is pumping so wildly it nearly drowns out the sound of Katie's disgust.

"Right, as I was fucking saying – _revolting_."

You laugh a little while Emily watches you and slides her hand down your arm until her fingers find your own. And, sweaty or not, she looks relieved to have found them.

"Sorry about the phone call," she says, ignoring Katie with some well-practiced disinterest.

"It's fine." You reach out for the wine glass on the table, tip it in Katie's direction. "Your sister's an exceptionally gracious host."

"Gracious and short-lived," Katie says, slipping into a jacket that'd been hung on one of Emily's kitchen chairs. "I'll see you later tonight." She comes around to kiss Emily's cheek then looks at the both of you with some mild, and yet familiar, disdain. "Try to be clothed when I return, yeah?"

"_Katie_," Emily says, her eyes closed tight.

"Just saying – wouldn't be the first time."

* * *

Emily's turned on _Wallace & Gromit_, and it's not even a Christmas film but somewhat of a Fitch tradition nevertheless. You think it's 'The Wrong Trousers,' though it's hard to say because you've not been paying it much attention what with Emily sat so closely but not touching. Your first glass of wine still sits, unfinished, on the coffee table in front of you along with mugs of hot chocolate and a tray of Walker's shortbread.

Things had started pleasantly enough, what with the way Emily took your hand and the warmth of her lips, gentle against your face. But you've never been particularly coordinated when it comes to her and thus stumbled rather quickly into uncharted conversation about Lewis. And about Rose. They've been splitting their time with him, week by week, and this much you knew. They've also decided that Christmas, in particular one's _first_ Christmas, shouldn't be broken apart into labels like _mine_ and _yours_ but something whole, something done together. Something familial and stable, if not held together with false pretence. And this much, you did _not_ know.

Emily tries to right it again – with sweet liqueurs and biscuits – but the mood's been well shattered, your mind adrift with things that make you long for New York. Or New Delhi. You'd even settle for Effy's flat, even though the distance doesn't seem great enough, since it's at least not _here_ – a space that suddenly feels so foreign and uninviting when considering everything in it that doesn't belong to you. But then, Emily leans forward for her drink and places a hand on your knee with so much familiarity, you have to work hard at remembering how it is that anything else matters _at all_.

She chokes lightly and then laughs while still trying to swallow, but when you sit up to rub her back she's already worked it down and is saying, "The Bailey's to cocoa ratio is possibly a bit … _off_."

Emily clears her throat and looks over at you, smiling like she wants it to be okay again. Asking with her eyes in a way that tugs something loose in your chest, unravelling what you've kept bound for so long. And you smile back, leaving your hand where it rests along her back, because it is. You don't know why, but it just is.

The rest of the video is far more enjoyable because you've had your own mug of boozy hot chocolate, and Emily's found her way into a crook at your side, snuggled in close. You keep getting whiffs of her washing powder – the same goddamn scent she's used since college – that's meant to smell of a summer's day or fresh wild flowers but to you just smells like Emily.

You've been lulled into a false sense of contentment what with the fairy lights hung about, the way Emily's been curled into you, the extra sweets, and the return of an old tradition you thought you'd lost. So when Emily says your name, quietly against your chest, you can't even register the apprehension.

"Yeah?"

"Can I ask you something?"

"Can't imagine I'd be able to stop you," you smile, pinching lightly Emily's side where your hand's been resting.

"It's – it's about Lewis." She shifts then, comes around to a sitting position so that she can see you face-to-face.

You're more thankful now for the wine than you are for the biscuits and hot chocolate, though it could be the combination of all three that's resulted in this sick feeling in your gut. Alternately, it could be the anxious way Emily's eyes flit from your own to her hands and back.

After a deep breath you say, "Alright."

"I know we've not really settled anything as of yet, but it's just that I sort of need to know. I mean, you can't very well be with me without being with me _and_ him. So," she folds and unfolds her hands, sets them onto your thigh then takes them back.

"So, what are you asking me?"

"Is he – is Lewis ever something you could want?"

So much has changed and so much has stayed exactly the same. The fact that you're back to this – the fact that it's no longer some hypothetical but extremely, fucking relevant – is horribly unfair. Because you're still unsure on which end of the spectrum that answer lies. You'd like to tell her without pause that yes, of course he is. You'd like to tell her that your biological clock started ticking the very instant you saw him, and that you're ready. You're finally ready. You'd just as much like to tell her the truth, without the paralysing fear that it'd result in losing her again. You can't decide on either – the truth or the lie – and Emily's eyes are already brimming with tears, so you settle on the only fact you know for certain. The thing you've known for what feels like your entire life.

"I want _you_, Em." You reach for her fidgeting hands and she cries anyway. "I haven't sorted out the rest just yet, but I want you _so_ much." When you lift a hand to cup her cheek, smoothing away the tears with a brush of your thumb, she closes her eyes. And then you ask for what you hope, more than anything, will be enough this time. "Can that be okay? For now?"

It's a bit disorienting at first, waking up on Emily's sofa in the dead of night and not only because you don't recall having fallen asleep. But also because Katie is covering you and her sleeping sister with a blanket, a gesture so affectionate you almost start crying again, unexpectedly. Katie's lips turn up – somewhere between a smirk and a smile – before she mouths 'Just stay.'

It's an unsettling feeling, something that keeps you awake long after she's gone to the spare bedroom and left you again in the dark, Emily breathing deeply against your neck. Because you can't help thinking that Katie Fitch has managed to reduce the whole of your life's problems into a simple, two-word command.


	20. Chapter 20

_It's that ancient love that just moves along. There's an itch so slight, even when you're gone. Well I met you right, but I kept you wrong. And I must wait until I've found the ground you're walking on._

_- Dust on the Ground, Bombay Bicycle Club_

* * *

Emily wakes before you, but only by seconds. Her mild shifting and quiet, morning sounds a pleasant way to wake up. Even if you've been cramped on a small sofa for hours. Even if there's a bit of soured morning breath passing between you. It's not always like this, you remember. You'll not always find such things lovely – the way she steals all the blankets or how she snores after drinking too much cider. But it's nice, for now, that you can come back to a place where even the unpleasant notes of being with someone just _aren't _unpleasant at all. The sun's not come up fully, leaving Emily's flat still shadowed in greys, leaving your body heavy with sleep. It must be early, though you can't remember the last time you've bothered to check a clock, your mobile tucked away somewhere, forgotten.

So you rub sleep from your eyes and ask her, "What time is it, do you think?"

Emily moves again, pulls her arm that's been tucked between you so that she can see her wristwatch, and you shift accordingly. "Fairly early. It's not yet six," she says. And your laid face-to-face now, the space between you slight and warm and replete with things unsaid.

You're murmuring 'I should probably go' just as Emily says 'Merry Christmas,' and it's an awkward jumble of words that results in nervous laughter. Which then dissolves into embarrassed smiles, fleeting eye contact, your teeth finding your bottom lip, as per, and then Emily just _watching_. And you think in spite of everything, or maybe _because of _everything, at least one of you should be able to remember that you're no longer supposed to be sixteen and full of fucking whimsy. But it's Christmas morning, and you're snuggled with Emily beneath a quilted blanket, and something about that just feels like an excuse.

"Do you have time for a coffee before you go?"

Emily's hand is so warm, her fingers so relaxed when you thread them together with your own. And she smiles into it, the kiss, practically sighing as your lips touch. "I have some time," you tell her. And then kiss her again.

It's meant to end there. A kind of simple, morning gesture without ulterior motive. Though Emily's hands are no more well-behaved than they had been in New York; and your restraint is just as shit as it's always been with her. So while awkward exchanges had felt reminiscent of your former selves, it's nothing near as familiar as snogging on a couch, under a blanket, and trying to keep quiet. You're out-of-practice, the both of you, at doing just that, and so it's not long before Emily moans too loudly and you suddenly remember.

"Shit. Katie."

Emily's dazed for a beat then kisses the flushed skin of your neck and smirks, "Wrong twin."

"No," you manage, your breathing still uneven and laboured, and Emily's mouth against your neck is doing fuck-all to help. "I mean, she's here. She came home late last night."

She pulls back finally, looking at you with an expression you think is meant to be suggestive but appears more apprehensive than anything. "Oh. Um, bedroom then?"

It's not as if you hadn't expected this sort of thing to happen, because it's _Emily_ after all. And you're almost used to it again, that raw desire that springs up whenever you're in her company. But then you think about not having that, not having _her_ within arm's reach, and it's what stops you from giving into it. Though it's a bloody miracle you're able to deny her, because Emily's leg is trapped between your own. Her thigh pressed to you, creating a kind of pressure that makes it hard to speak coherently.

"I really should, um, be – be off, actually."

Emily's face doesn't fall so much as it neutralises completely before she lets her head drop, nodding a few times while you fight the urge to change your mind.

It's rather shit for the next several seconds until you tell her, "I have something for you – a sort of Christmas present." She's smiling again when she looks back up, and you can't help thinking how much simpler things would be if the solution to everything was as easy as Emily's smile.

* * *

You bring your coffees back to the couch, and then try to work the disappointment off your face when Emily leaves a much bigger gap between you than you'd prefer. Though, you've basically just thwarted her proposition for Christmas-morning sex, so you try to be thankful she's at least still sharing the same piece of furniture. Even though Emily's put the tree back on – twinkling now in white fairy lights – you're keeping pretty quiet since it's so early. And if you remember anything distinctive about living with Katie Fitch, it's that she'll nick your Diet Coke's, yes, but more pertinently that she's a fucking _terror_ if woken unexpectedly.

"I've had yours sent to New York. Sorry, I forgot to tell you."

"Oh, it's okay."

"Are you going to let me open it then, or is this just another tease?" Emily says, eyeing the wrapped gift in your lap before arching an eyebrow and smirking into her first sip of coffee.

Your retort is more like a stuttered laugh, and you can't let Emily think she's won [even though she always, _always_ does] so you look away until you think most of the burn is gone from your cheeks and ears.

"It yields some explanation first," you say, and that erases most of the smirk she's been wearing.

"Alright." Emily says the word slowly, drawn out as she moves to place her cup on the coffee table.

Clearing your throat, you start to tell her, "When I first got out of uni I went back to work for the non-profit where I'd interned the year before. Didn't want to – work for them, I mean – since my only real plan after graduation was to, you know, become extraordinarily wealthy creating studio art."

You can tell you've got her attention now because you've not ever done this – spoken to each other about that mysterious time apart. And it's striking, really, just how much unknown there still is lingering between you, when it feels like so much has just fallen back into place. But recognising it just furthers your conviction that you're _finally_ about to do the right thing. It's almost a relief. It'll make all those years of trial and error worth it, you think, if you can just get this one thing right.

"Well, anyway, still waiting on that plan to formulate," you say with a sigh and a timid smile, which Emily returns. "Since I wasn't making art, or at least not profiting from it, I learnt how to care for it. Packaging artwork is almost an art form in itself, really. I'd done some at uni, but I really took to it for the first few years out of school. Art crating, it's called." Emily nods while you sip your coffee. And then, feeling a bit self-conscious, you tell her, "Sorry, this is all just sort of boring backstory, but I think in light of some other stuff, it seemed like something you might like to know."

You've propped your legs on the sofa, bent at the knees and serving as a kind of bridge between you and her. She inches a bit closer to them, places a hand onto your shin then slides it around to give your calf a soft squeeze. And then says in that low, morning rasp that grates pleasingly along the back of your neck, "For the record, I'd like to know everything." Any self-doubt then dissolves into nothing. And you feel some restored certainty that you've made the right choice.

"Yeah," you say, returning her smile. "Yeah, me too."

"So," she reaches again for her coffee. "Art crating."

"Right." You clear your throat, and Emily's hand just lingers somewhere below your kneecap. "The draw was never really the crating, actually. Or it was, but it was more the travel that I loved, I think. I would accompany all these exhibits, help with the unpacking of the art prior to installation, and then return to crate the pieces afterwards. And, I mean, it wasn't glamorous. Working for the non-profit, we didn't travel luxuriously or anything. But we went _all_ over – it was nice, feeling sort of detached for a while, you know?"

Emily nods again, though it's a bit more hesitant. A bit more subdued when she says, "Sure."

You look down to your lap where your fingers have started to fiddle the corner of her gift. "I've asked my boss to approve my taking a similar position when I return after the holidays."

"Oh?"

"Yeah, I'll be training and supervising, working more closely with the museum and venue curators, instead of doing the actual packaging and crating, but it'd mean a great deal of travel. And, I think it's what I need. I think it could be good for me."

"To ... feel detached?" Emily asks.

"Sort of." She looks far too hurt for what you meant to imply so you press on quickly, leaning over to set your coffee onto the table beside hers. "I mean, I think I'd like to be away from New York for a bit."

"Okay. Can I ask why?"

You exhale just once, through your nose, pinch your lips together, feeling them contort into an almost smile. "In part, to see how I might feel about being away from it more … permanently."

Emily says, "Oh," and then breathes in suddenly before audibly realising, "_Oh_."

"It's also become bloody _impossible_ to sort my head in my own flat." In some mock irritation, you tell her, "You know, for someone who spent less than thirty-six hours there, you certainly know how to leave your fucking mark."

She laughs then, lays her head against the back cushions and says, "Yes, well, I've been told."

"But really, Ems, you know I'm serious, yeah? About taking some time to figure this out?"

Emily takes a heavy sigh, nods again.

"And I don't just mean by myself. I want you – _need_ you to help in that. It's not something I want to do on my own. Which is why I got you this." You feel almost silly then, having orated this lengthy speech all for a gift that hardly seems worthy of it. But Emily looks utterly pleased when she pulls back the paper. Before she can ask, you explain to her, "I'd like you to write me."

"Write you?" She opens the box of paper stock, lets her fingers graze the texture. "About what?"

"Well, everything – or anything, really. Tell me about your life here. Tell me about graduating university or about your dissertation. Tell me how you ended up in London."

"You really want me to tell you about –"

"_Everything_." You reach out for her hand, which she gives you.

"Okay. And what about you?"

"I'm excellent at correspondence, I'll have you know," you say, proudly tilting your chin upwards. "Just ask my mum."

"I mean, If there are things I want to know?"

"Just ask. Though, I can't promise my letters will hold the same writing calibre of an English professor."

Emily laughs and begins rubbing her thumb along the back of your hand. She looks back at the stationery before asking quietly, "How long?" When she looks back up, you hold your breath, involuntarily. "How long will you travel?"

"Dunno, really. I'll likely have a better idea of it once I get back in the office and speak with my boss."

"Well, I'm really excited for you. It sounds – it sounds like a great opportunity." And she couldn't look _less_ excited if she'd just found out she'd be sharing a bed with Katie at their Nan's farm in Perthshire. [An expression of affliction of which you're quite familiar, actually.]

But you tell her 'thanks' anyway. Because somewhere, beneath the layers of impatience and disappointment, you think she probably means it.

"So, this is the plan then?"

"Yeah, I guess this is the plan. I'll work and travel and you'll continue your life as it is here, but we can keep each other a part of those lives. We'll talk and write and whatever happens, happens."

Emily scoffs and nearly rolls her eyes. "That's not terribly reassuring, Naomi."

"I'm sorry, Ems, but I honestly _don't_ know, not anymore than you do."

"You still have your reservations." Her voice is quieter, her eyes cast down.

Your reservations could fill entire libraries. But, it's not what matters. Not now and maybe not ever. And so you tell her, "There's always going to be some element of uncertainty, Em. That's just life, isn't it? But if I'm sure of anything, it's wanting you. I'm as sure of it now as I was when I was far more lanky and awkward and _blonde_." She looks back to you then, her mouth threatening to turn upwards. "I'm just unsure of how to keep you, without also losing ... _me_."

It's not an unfamiliar dilemma. And you suddenly feel terribly homesick for a hot cup of tea and the gentle lilt of your mum's sage advice.

Emily's voice breaks your thoughts. "I should wake Katie. We've got to catch our train to Bristol by nine, and I've not even packed. Plus, I'm sure Effy's waiting for you."

She starts to move off the sofa, but you keep hold of her hand. "Hey." You have to tug only lightly before she's sitting again and this time, thankfully, much closer. "We can do this, can't we?"

She looks a little less deflated when she turns to meet your eye. "Yeah, of course we can. It's just hard, Naomi. Feeling like we've wasted so much time as it is – and then trying to fathom any more time apart." She shrugs loosely, her shoulders a bit slumped as they fall. "It's just hard."

"I want to do the right thing, Em. And that's not always easy, yeah?"

Emily smiles, a kind of sad smile that is no less lovely. "Yeah."

"Besides, it's not Manchester this time, right?"

"What do you mean?"

"In New York you said, 'this isn't the same as Manchester,' and you're right. This has got to be different. For one, we're adults now and should probably try to remember that, you know, from time-to-time."

Emily hums in agreement, leans back into you and rests her head onto your chest.

"Still can't quite believe I turned up like that in the middle of term – what a fucking nutter."

Her laughter settles into a long, contented sigh when she's wrapped both arms around your waist. "Was a fun day though, that," she says and leans up to kiss your ear.

It's your turn to hum a response, though it comes out like a moan more so than you'd intended, which Emily takes as encouragement to continue kissing her way down to your collarbone. Your hands tense around blankets and sofa cushions when Emily's head dips a bit lower, and you're not sure you should be saying anything at the moment other than, 'I've got to go.'

But because your rationality has all but vanished, and has never quite functioned properly where Emily is concerned anyway, you whisper something like, 'Shit,' because Emily's hands are just, well, _Emily's hands_.

"Come on," she says, standing and pulling you up with her.

Your protest, weak and pathetic, does absolutely nothing to stop her. "No, Em –"

"Naomi." She's amused as well as determined, and it's not at all fair the way those two things play across her face. "You're about to fuck off for an indeterminate length of time, and it's Christmas morning, and I'm taking you to my fucking bedroom." She stops midway down the corridor to reach up and kiss away your stunned expression. And then pulls again where your hands are joined, saying through a cheeky smirk, "We can be adults tomorrow."

* * *

**Post script:** Well, the daunting day has passed, hasn't it? Did we all survive? I'm not sure how many of you were able to actually watch the new ep so I'll not talk about it here. Though if you've got thoughts, questions, rants, an unwavering urge to use profanity, feel free to PM me about it. And for those of you who've not yet seen Effy in all her London glory, well, perhaps a new chap from your old pal script will tide you over until you've got access to 'Fire.' Tread lightly, mates.


	21. Chapter 21

**Author's Note:** Happy belated birthday, **pitapumpkineater**.

* * *

You spend Christmas day in Effy's flat getting pissed and eating takeaway pizza until Tony turns up and forces you both into a game of Monopoly. Which he, of course, wins effortlessly since you and Effy can't manage your funds to save your lives, let alone acquire any property. In the end, Tony feeds you pudding, makes you tea, and puts you both to bed; and it's not at all the worst Christmas you've had.

You leave Effy, still in bed, the following morning. Hugging her goodbye, she mumbles into your shoulder something about meeting you in Barcelona, which doesn't register until later on the plane. So you flip through a tentative schedule of projects you've been compiling, finding Barcelona just after Milan and before Berlin. And then marvel at Effy's sharp recall despite buckets of alcohol.

Richard signs off on your proposal to transfer departments without reluctance, and two weeks after returning to New York some kind of plan's been set in motion. While packing up your luggage for a flight, set to leave the following morning, a jolt of nerves splits your stomach in half. You're fine with the travel – excited to return to it, in fact – but it's the uncertainty that lies at the end of it, at the end of whatever this is, that's making your palms sweat as you squeeze them into fists. Your phone goes then, as you're sat on the edge of the bed staring at a half-packed bag and stack of folded tops.

_Un-fucking-canny_, you think, that Emily still pops up in this way. Whether she's wielding college forms for student elections or wishing you a safe flight. You smile down at the screen of your mobile, thumbing your reply with far less emoticons than Emily chooses to use. Emily's reply comes seconds later, a picture text of her with Lewis sat on her lap, both smiling broadly and his tiny hand held up in a wave by Emily's thumb and forefinger.

_Say hi to San Francisco for us_, it says.

And it jogs something in your memory so that you're up and moving into the sitting room, pulling an old, worn notebook from its place on the bookshelves. You sit on the sofa, another bag partially packed laid beside you, and flip through the old pages. The list at the back makes you smile again, the fact that you've shared even one of these 'Places to take Emily' with her, warming your cheeks as your fingers scan down the page. It goes into the bag without another thought, along with a portfolio for the artist with which you'll be working, your iPad, and several packs of chocolate biscuits. Emily's gift had been waiting, as promised, when you'd first returned to New York. A box packed full of English teas and sweets and an old paperback – no doubt Emily's own copy – with a note written in the front flap that read: _one of my favourites, maybe soon to be one of yours_.

Your stay on the west coast isn't long enough to receive any letters from Emily, but there are two in your post box upon your return to Brooklyn. The first includes detailed descriptions of her students from a class for the new term. All thirty-five of them. And it would be painfully boring material if the writing didn't sound _exactly_ the way Emily speaks – the sound of her voice almost ringing in your ears as you read through it. The second isn't a letter at all but a page straight from her dissertation – an extremely early, rough draft of which she feels particularly unimpressed and has begged for your input. A kind of anxious rush fills up your chest at the idea of this actually working. Because you'd not really anticipated transitioning so seamlessly – you'd not even really expected her to go along with it at all. This idea of taking time apart and slowing down and stepping back to be sure everything that _feels_ so right, is in fact, not a massive, fucking delusion that will end in tragedy. A tragedy you wouldn't survive. And you're not in the habit of predicting outcomes, but twice surviving the demise of you and Emily? Of that, you're certain you would not.

* * *

Effy comes to Barcelona for a long weekend. She instantly charms the interns who have travelled with you – both Jacob _and_ Sarah – takes you all dancing after a lengthy dinner of wine and tapas, then makes you smoke spliff with her until you're all completely monged. The museum hosting the exhibit has a small gift shop where you pick up two postcards, showcasing artwork you think Emily might enjoy. Effy observes the transaction but says nothing. Three days pass and Effy doesn't ask about or comment on your _arrangement _with Emily, but she then brings it up – with absolutely zero pretence – when you're hardly prepared to answer.

"So, you've shagged her. And now you're, what – courting her?"

You've walked down to the waterfront and have come to sit on shallow, stone steps where small children jump from step to step beside you, and Effy lazily smokes her Spanish fags.

"Fuck's sake, I'm not _courting_ her."

"Katie seems to think you're following some kind of antiquated ritual as such. And you've just penned two letters for post."

"Katie? Since when are you discussing anything with Katie? Namely, my personal life."

Effy reaches up to brush hair from her face, a light breeze blowing it back into place a moment later. "I took her for coffee before she left London."

"Well, might I suggest you and _Katie_ consider some alternate topics of conversation? The last time you two put your heads together, I ended up shanghaied in my own flat, didn't I?"

"Fairly certain you ended up shagging your brains out in your own flat."

You falter, only slightly, before arguing, "So _not_ the fucking point, Eff."

The smoke she exhales drifts up and over your heads, and the children are still jumping ceaselessly, laughing like they've just found the best game ever.

"You're not going to tell me then?" Effy says.

You look back to her and ask, "Tell you what?"

"Why it is you've not yet come back to London. Emily – she's what you want, Naomi." She waves an arm about in the space in front of you – towards the sparkling water and gorgeous architecture. "Not this."

You stretch your legs along the steps and lean back against your hands, the stone warm against your palms from baking in the afternoon sun. "Yeah, well, she's always been what I've wanted. But there was a time when I wasn't what _she_ wanted, Eff."

Effy leans back, mirroring your position, her fingers loosely covering your own. "It was a long time ago."

"Doesn't feel like it sometimes."

"It was _so_ long ago, in fact, that a girl I once hospitalised dislikes me now only out of stubbornness and no longer out of seething hatred for fucking her boyfriend."

You make eye contact, mutually fighting grins before bursting into laughter that rivals that of the squealing children. "Thanks for that perspective. That's well comforting."

She rests her head onto your shoulder. "Don't mention it."

* * *

For the next two months you see very little of your flat and have adjusted again to life in hotels and tiny cottage rentals. Emily's letters continue to pour in regularly until the third month when, despite being stationed in Berlin for a lengthy exhibit, the correspondence is staggered at best, and Emily's voice over the phone sounds despondent.

Cautiously, you ask her one night, "Everything alright?"

"Yeah, fine."

You almost laugh that she's even attempted a false reassurance because her tone is fully saturated in despair, and then remember that to make light of her sullen mood would likely backfire.

So you attempt a clever distraction. "Turns out your sister's doing some work in Magdeburg and is considering taking a train up here for the day. Bet you never thought you'd see the day – me and Katiekins playing nice all on our own."

"Yeah, that's fucking great."

"Emily –"

"No, I'm sorry. I swore I wouldn't – fuck, I'm trying not to be this way."

"You could always just tell me what's wrong, you know." House music from the club four floors down starts another track which pumps loudly into your room, and you move to shutter all the windows before lying back on the bed.

"I don't want you to think I've stopped supporting your decision …"

Your breathing slows, not noticeably, though the air feels thin just the same. "But?"

"But I fucking miss you. And now even my sister, who fucking _loathed_ you for half of the time that I was falling in love with you, gets to see you and I just –" she sighs loudly. You imagine her slumped into that chair she keeps near the windows of her sitting room. "I just really miss you."

"Em, this isn't easy for me either, okay? I miss you too. A lot. But –"

"I know," she says, dejection hitting you hard through the mobile speaker. "I know it's the right thing for now." There's another quiet beat and then she says, "I spoke with Rose earlier when she came to take Lewis, and I think she's just soiled my mood."

It's not what you expect to hear, and so suddenly your sat upright, nervously pulling at loose strings on your cardigan.

"Oh." Clearing your throat, you attempt to ask casually, "Everything alright there, then?"

"It's fine. She just often regards me as if, I don't know, like nothing's happened."

You're about six seconds away from either booking a flight back to London or asking her what the fuck that even means – your mind playing terribly vivid scenarios of their interactions – but Emily's voice, thankfully, stops you from doing either.

"Seeing her, it just makes me miss you more, you know?"

"Sure," you croak, and then swallow hard. "Well, I'm sorry – that things have been shit."

"They haven't honestly. I really am fine. I'm just – well, I'm not terribly patient in waiting for what I want."

Emily sounds a bit more like herself now, causing you to _feel_ a bit more like yourself, panic subsiding rapidly. So you lie back against the mountain of pillows on your bed and twist a strand of hair between your fingers.

"_Really_? Impatient? Now see, this is why we need some time apart – there's so much to discover about one another. And this is _certainly_ something I hadn't known about you, Emily Fitch."

Her 'fuck you' only comes through on the tails of her laughter, and it feels like maybe an insult you could get used to hearing.

* * *

You meet Katie at the train station, then walk to a nearby café for lunch.

A glass of wine into the meal, and Katie launches into it. "What the fuck are you doing in Berlin then?"

"Uh, working?"

Katie rolls her eyes and places her wine glass back on the table. "If you're going to make me spell it out for you – what the fuck are you doing in Berlin and _not_ with Emily?"

"Christ, Katie. Remember when you thought I was no good for her? Can't we resume that dynamic?"

"Please, that's the last thing you want from me."

You swirl the wine in your glass a few times before finishing it off. "I don't know, seems preferable to whatever inquisition I'm about to endure."

"You love her."

"Is that a question?"

"Of course it's not a fucking question," she almost laughs. "Sorry, babes, but you're about as transparent as a window with your feelings on my sister," she smirks. And you can't even believe you thought spending time alone with Katie fucking Fitch would be a grand idea.

Worse still, you're in no position to argue her point and reply lamely, "Brilliant."

"Look, all I'm saying is, it's pretty apparent you're both rather pathetic when you're not, like, together."

"_Apparently_," you counter, "you've been spending far too much time with Effy."

"_Whatever_." She motions for more drinks from a passing waiter, again rolling her eyes in your direction.

Katie's supervising orphanages worldwide, and she's this selfless humanitarian who resembles literally _nothing_ of the girl with showy tits and garish fashion that flounced into Roundview on your first day of sixth form. And yet, even still, it takes only one off-handed comment to make you wonder if she's really changed at all.

"I'm right and you know it. You can't possibly be happy without each other."

The mood's pretty jovial – in that Katie's having a laugh at your expense, yes, but you're mostly playing along – until something strikes you and your mouth is moving before you can stop it. "Emily was though." You look back to find Katie's expression caught somewhere between amusement and confusion. "She found Rose. And she was happy. She was _in love_."

"Is that it then? Is that what's keeping you from being with her?"

"Rose gave her what I couldn't," you shrug. "She gave her this whole fucking life that Emily wanted more than –"

"More than you." Katie's voice is soft, and you wish that the idea of her being compassionate didn't make you want to cry. But the surge of emotion is sort of unavoidable, so you nod quietly and pray that more wine is on its way. "You've always been kind of thick, you know, when it comes to my sister."

You think the tremor in your voice will pass so long as Katie keeps on insulting you, and manage to tell her, "I thought we were being nice to each other these days, Katiekins."

She smiles more kindly now, and if it isn't the worst kind of torture to be missing Emily so viscerally and also sat across from someone who mirrors her so closely.

"Emily has always had this notion of family that's oddly traditional considering her, well, inclinations. And she's fucking stubborn to boot. So try telling her that things won't always stack up the way she's planned, and she's not likely to take it well, yeah? She's likely to go off and prove you wrong out of fucking spite."

"Yeah, I was there, Katie. Try as I might to forget, I do recall Manchester. What's your point?"

"My _point_, you oblivious twat, is that Emily got it all wrong. She held onto the wrong parts of the life she wanted, didn't she?" Katie smiles at the waiter as he sets two more glasses of wine onto your table and then returns her gaze to you. "And she knows it, okay? She's _always_ known it."

* * *

For Emily's birthday, you send flowers. For your birthday, a few months after, Emily sends naughty picture texts of herself because she's always been just a bit filthier than she lets on. And while you'd prefer to think you're above such crude innuendo, you can't stop yourself from wholly appreciating the gesture when your hand's found its way into your knickers on some lonely night in Milan.

In Chicago, you take note to bring Emily to Navy Pier, sit on the lawns for an outdoor show at Millennium Park. In Florence, you imagine her in the Strozzina, enamoured by the installations of modern art. Vienna speaks for itself, but a particular spot in the city centre makes its way onto your list by way of their chocolate mousse that could only be appreciated properly by Emily's obsessively sweet palette. You spend only a short amount of time in Washington, DC, but find a leisurely day to walk about the Reflecting Pool and end up sat on the steps of the Lincoln Memorial. When you pull the sketchbook from your bag and flip to the appropriate page, your hand pauses, pen hovering above the page. You squint into the midday sun while biting your lip before looking back to the book in your lap. And then, just before adding 'Washington Monument' to the list, you consider the title at the top of the page and amend it to read 'Places to take Emily and Lewis.'

* * *

**Post Script:** I'm guessing I don't need to tell you how I felt about the conclusion [?] to skins Fire as sentiments buzzing about the internet pretty much fall in line with my opinions. I'm not in the habit of murdering my characters or their precious personalities, but apparently such has become acceptable in the realm of once greatly respected television. On the upswing, new fic writers and old favourites are crawling out of the woodwork as a result of that fuckery so celebrate in that, yeah? Love to hear your thoughts, if you feel so inclined.


	22. Chapter 22

**Author's Note:** As a rule, I tend to detest lengthy ANs. That being said, I'm about to prattle on for a bit so feel free to skip ahead, read the chap, and return to this diatribe at a later time. Or, ignore it completely. You'll not hurt my feelings. Promise.

Here's the truth of the matter: I love this story.

I loved it at its conception, and I continue to love it more as I'm able to write, to fill in the gaps, and to carefully guide it from start to finish. I'd continue writing it if only one of you were reading along. Or if no one were. Even if none of you followed and read and reviewed, I'd still keep writing it. Because I like the story, because I'm curious to see where it goes, and because I look forward, every chap, to seeing how it plays out. I say this because I've been feeling horribly anxious, as of late, about the direction of it. I've felt lost and distracted and nervous that the plot is running away from me. That I've somehow lost control of it.

And it's sort of been magnified, I'm sure, by the events of Fire. Horrifying in bigger ways because of how massive a failure that turned out to be. And I'm not feeling particularly empathic towards that writer at the moment, but I'm willing to recognise the danger in losing yourself in a story in the worst way. Things start to morph and become unrecognisable, start to feel untrue and inauthentic. Suddenly one character starts tripping over another, the momentum can be unstoppable. A sex scandal falls into fraud and legalities, which turns into forced, comical unemployment, twists around simple crushes, hushed secrets, random, unexplained shags, and rushed, contrived reunions - all held together with sloppy dialogue and clumsy scene shifts. Before you know it, you're carelessly offing a beloved character and sending another, beautifully crafted and flawlessly portrayed [because that's what Kaya is: flawless], to an indeterminate prison sentence all with 7 minutes left to tell your story. And you call it resolution. You call it an ending. And the carelessness, the blatant off-handedness, is so much more tragic than the bleak tragedies you were trying to write.

I say all that to say this.

The pacing of ROYL has been off, for me. We've been speeding up when we should be slowing down. I've been in some mad rush to get to an ending, to tell this story more rapidly when, in fact, it's the thing that is most likely to properly ruin it. And, honestly, I'm just not prepared to do that. Not to you. Not to this story. And certainly not to these lovely characters of which I will forever, in some way, feel attached.

So, sit back, relax. Have a cup of tea or a couple fingers of whiskey. Take a deep breath [I've had several - deep breaths and whiskey pours, that is]. Everybody settle in, I'd like very much like to tell you a story.

* * *

Back in your flat, for the first time in weeks, you lay sprawled on your bed, legs dangling over its edge and arms flopped back over your head. You've been laid there for ages, an hour at least, maybe more. The stillness, the quiet, the time alone with your thoughts, is all part of some ancient, personal ritual. A habit formed so long ago, it's as much a part of you as the sound of your voice or your compulsion towards knee-jerk sarcasm. Sometimes, you're inclined towards music during these bouts of reflection – some kind of distant soundtrack to your thoughts – but more often than not, it's only this. It's only you, and your bed, and your free-falling thoughts.

You remember a Saturday – months after uprooting your newly established London life – in the tiny, Manchester flat that Katie begrudgingly allowed you to share with her and Emily. You sometimes can't remember the shape of your dad's face, and there are entire years of your life, spent on random communes with your mum, that have blurred and all but vanished. You've since forgotten loads from college – the absolute recklessness of your days and nights, the absurd intricacies of that motley crew who you would eventually call your best mates – and it's probably a blessing, that. So you can't quite figure then, why it is that some rainy Saturday in Manchester, entirely insignificant in that nothing even remarkable happened, can be recollected with sharpened ease.

Katie had gone home to Bristol, still choosing at that point to spend as little time around the two of you as possible, and you and Emily had been trapped indoors for two straight days. The rain, unrelenting. The soggy chill in the air, uninviting. She was determined to study; you were determined to undermine her efforts and keep her attentions all for yourself.

You close your eyes, wanting to recall everything of that nothing, little Saturday.

* * *

"_Naomi_ – fucking stop it." On the third attempt of your wriggling toes into her side, she doesn't even bother looking at you, just jabs at your foot with her elbow. Can't even be arsed to glower at you over the textbook in her lap, held instead at an angle to block you from her view.

"My feet are cold," you say in some tiny, weak voice that you hope will ignite, at the very least, a look of sympathy in her; and, at best, the caress of her warm hands on your cold toes.

Instead, Emily tells you, without an ounce of sympathy, "Put on socks then, for fuck's sake."

You huff dramatically, craning your neck so you can see the window behind your head, inverted from this angle so the raindrops appear to run up the pane instead of down. It's still pissing down to beat the band, and as time passes, the walls of the flat have gradually begun to close in on you. You wouldn't mind it, really, being holed up for the weekend with your girlfriend. There was a time, in fact, when you'd not bothered to leave your bedroom for days at a time, rain or shine. And last night – dancing to old Billy Holiday records and making your first, serious attempts at acquiring a taste for whiskey before taking Emily, first on the sofa and later in bed – was meant to be a precursor to your Saturday. Which you imagined would involve sleeping late, staying wrapped up in the dishevelled bedclothes until midday while bartering sexual favours to get the other to make coffee, and spending the afternoon lazily watching telly with Emily curled into your chest [clothing, optional]. But then Emily woke with a determination for productivity that threw a wrench in your otherwise brilliant plan; and you've thus spent the first part of the day either sulking or finding ways to annoy her in childish retaliation.

"How much longer do you plan on ignoring me?"

Emily sighs, very loudly, as she tilts back her head to stare at the ceiling. Though, there's laughter at the end of it, and the book drops to her lap when she looks back at you so you can now see the full brunt of her exasperation. "I'm _reading_."

"Yes, but, Katie's not even _here_ – shouldn't we be, I don't know, taking advantage of the empty flat?"

"I'm fairly certain we did a good bit of that last night." Emily's smirking, even though you're still scowling, and then arches an eyebrow to really drive the point home. "Precisely where you're now laying, if memory serves me."

It's true. You'd pushed her back into the cushions after tripping over your own feet, narrowly missing the corner of the coffee table, and landed in a graceless tangle. Emily had been taken by surprise for a moment before kissing you back, tugging urgently at the button of your jeans. It would be a more pleasing recall if you were currently in the same position, if Emily were laid beneath you with heavy breaths and flushed cheeks. It'd be brilliant foreplay, actually, recounting the events of last night just before starting again in the dreary, afternoon light that's shading the room.

Except that's not the way this is going, apparent by the distance between you and that _cunting_ textbook to which Emily's clutching.

It's not fair then, that your body still responds to the memory of it, betraying your sullen mood with a persistent throbbing that only intensifies when Emily places a hand – warm, as you knew it would be – on your leg and smiles.

"Just let me finish this chapter, alright? Then I'm all yours."

It shouldn't even be humanly possible, the things Emily does with her voice. Half the time sounding like she's a breath away from losing it altogether, the way it scratches out when she says _yours_. And it really, _really_ shouldn't have the effect on you that it does – not now after hearing it, being surrounded by it, for so long – except, it does. And your own voice offers nothing by way of seduction, only pitches several octaves higher than it should when you're about to cry. So you're now not only feeling exceptionally turned on but inadequate to boot.

You get up then, pulling the baggy cardigan you can't seem to let go no matter the way it's tattered into holes on your elbows, more tightly around your middle, and tell her you're going to put the kettle on. As you stand beside her, Emily looks up at you, regarding you so fondly, the feeling of your chest expanding painfully is the only thing to distract from the ache low in your gut. So you lean down, kiss the top of her head where that bright red hair is dimming a bit every day, and tell her, "Read faster."

"I could, you know," she says, over the back of the sofa, her voice following you into the kitchenette, "if I weren't being constantly assaulted by your ice blocks."

You turn towards her, two mugs in one hand, and wave the other in the air in front of you. "Well, go on then – get to it!"

Emily finds you, halfway through your cup of tea, where you've moved to the bedroom to tidy because – love her as you do – your standards of cleanliness have always significantly varied from that of Emily's. And she's let you take over half of her extremely limited space, so you feel inclined to keep things neat and organised as best you can. Even if Emily never learns to put her tee shirts in the bloody hamper instead of leaving them strewn across the floor. You're shaking one out – her black, 'Stairway to Heaven' tee that's faded nearly grey, the graphic on the front broken and chipped apart – determined to release at least some of the wrinkles.

Emily doesn't even like Led Zeppelin, though that didn't stop her form turning up to college one day wearing the tee – a second-hand purchase from a shopping trip with Katie – as a ploy to get your attention, the crafty minx. It was a bit of cat and mouse back then – Emily's subtle manipulations constantly challenging your ability to resist them – but she lured you effortlessly that day, straight out of the canteen and into the toilets near the science block for a heated, midday snog.

She stops before entering the bedroom, leaning her shoulder against the doorframe when you look over at her.

"All finished then?"

Emily just shakes her head, her loose strands of hair swishing back and forth across her shoulders. So you finish the fold, adding the tee shirt to the stacks of clothes you've gathered on the bed, which you've also made. The entire room actually looks more liveable and less like a bomb hit it; and, fleetingly, you almost wish Katie were here to see it.

"Can't concentrate," Emily says, slowly making her way into the room. "Too quiet out there."

You turn to face her, hands on your hips, because you can't even _wait_ to hear this explanation. "So, you can't get any work done with me in the same room, and now you can't concentrate when I've fucked off to give you some peace and quiet?"

She's stood right in front of you now, her mouth curling up at the corners even though she pinches her lips together, and nods bashfully.

You shake your head at her, rolling your eyes affectionately. "What am I to do with you?"

Emily takes your hands from your hips, places them on her own then leans up to where her mouth just barely reaches your ear and whispers, "Whatever you like."

It's the only invitation you'll ever need.

Your tea's gone cold by the time you've finished, and in a joint effort of orgasmic leg spasms and general shifting and rolling, the laundry you'd so carefully folded is back on the floor. But, Emily is naked beside you, her breaths coming in contact with your neck in these short, little puffs of warm air. And she has always felt the most lovely like this. Your eyes close and reopen, slowly and repetitively, with every brush of Emily's fingers along your arm.

"I love you," you say, and then lean back so you can look at the way it registers in her eyes. You no longer revel in just saying it. You much prefer to watch Emily's face as the words light across it.

"Yeah?" she says, kind of dreamily.

Some earlier version of yourself would loathe to think of someone looking at you in this way – let alone to call it _dreamily_ – but that person is as good as gone. Emily banished her when she grabbed hold of your heart, refusing against all odds to give it back. So you just nod, biting at your lower lip before Emily leans in to kiss it, a soft, lingering kind of kiss that makes what she says next practically superfluous.

"I love you too."

In an hour, you'll be starving, and Emily will raid the fridge and cupboards, preparing for you some meal out of bits and pieces that you'd never, on your own, be able to create. You'll sit on the mismatched chairs at the kitchen table in nothing but tee shirts and underwear. You'll laugh at how the sight of you sat there would first horrify then infuriate Katie, and then you'll tell Emily that compared to your inadequacies in the kitchen, she's practically a candidate for the James Beard. You don't worry, though, of your shortcomings. Because you'll never have to fend for yourself. Because Emily will be there – to forage the kitchens of all your future flats – and will feed you when too much afternoon sex has turned you ravenous.

_This is it_, you think. This is the rest of your life, in essence, wrapped up in one, insignificant, rainy afternoon.

* * *

Except it's not, at all. You've gotten something horribly wrong along the way and ended up here – in a flat that you don't share with Emily, in a city that feels lifetimes away from her, and even further away from the notion of you _and_ her. You bite at the skin inside your lip, but it doesn't stop hot tears from brimming, spilling from the corners of your eyes, and rolling down your temples. Her letters are strewn along the bed, and your hands graze them as you reach to touch your face, feeling more tears threatening to erupt. Before long, the sobs are louder, uncontrolled and embarrassing. You curl into the duvet and pillows, muffling the sound of yourself breaking apart.

You wake up confused and groggy, a testament to the amount of time you've spent away from your own bed. You blink several times from the lighting, although dim, that feels very bright for the late hour. And your eyes are clearly swollen, reddened and raw from so much crying. You find your phone beneath her letters and just hold it, in an open palm, for several minutes while your brain slowly comes to.

You've dialed her number before even doing the math and then realise, with a stroke of good fortune, that three in the morning for you is actually eight for her. She answers, bright and chipper, if not somewhat surprised, and you feel a knot of emotion swell up again in your throat at the sound.

"Hi!"

You swallow, painfully working back the urge to cry, but your response is hardly more than a pitiful, croaking 'Hey.'

"Hey, what's wrong?" Emily's tone shifts from happy surprise to alerted concern so quickly you have to bite down hard onto your top lip to keep from falling apart all over again.

You roll over onto your back and hear the distinct crinkling of paper beneath you. All these letters you've collected, all these bits of Emily you've gathered, and for what? You wanted to make certain. You wanted to gain some knowledge of the girl you lost. You wanted to feel some sense of calm, some reassurance that old mistakes and massive life cock-ups weren't imminent. But you were grasping at straws, really. Because nothing with Emily has ever been certain except Emily herself. You've never been sure of a single thing, really, apart from her. It's why being pushed away, losing that safe hold, felt like the worst kind of loss. Like walking on ice, losing your footing, and grabbing at thin air for something to break your fall. You think about telling her that _everything's_ gone wrong. That this isn't how you were meant to be – sad and lonely, your voices stretching across the ocean that separates you. You think she should know what you knew ten years ago. Some gradual realisation you'd no doubt been discovering, bit by bit, since meeting Emily Fitch – small, quiet, and impossibly shy – in secondary school, only to reveal itself fully on an afternoon in Manchester. You figured out love first; but it was knowing you couldn't ever really be without her that weighed so much heavier.

Emily shattered that ideal, and you've never been able to forget that. To forgive her entirely. But then, Emily had her own ideal shattered, too. Not once, with you, but again with Rose. And so, you think, maybe both of your expectations were faulty; ill-advised, perhaps, to place all your eggs in someone else's basket.

"Naomi?" Emily's concern is thicker, though her voice is softer. You've gone quiet for too long now and worrying her has never been your intention. "What is it – can you tell me why you're upset? Please?"

Emily always puts 'love' at the close of her letters, just before signing her name. It doesn't always say the word – spelled out in those four, bold letters that used to terrify you – but the sentiment is always there.

_I thought about your eyes today, and it made me smile._

_I wish you were here._

_Effy sounds bored without you._

_London misses you._

_England misses you. _

_I miss you. _

It's all so inconsequential – the ways you've let each other down, the way your hearts have been battered and bruised. It's always been pointless, your worries of how and when and how badly things will fall apart. It doesn't matter that the first time you were barely seventeen, prone to be careless and headstrong by your age. And it doesn't matter that now, at nearly twice that age, you feel too careful, too vulnerable. Emily could break you apart a hundred times. She could send you away and then call you back. And you'd return to her just the same, every time.

You take a steadying breath, wishing that instead of clutching a useless mobile you could feel Emily's hand in yours, thrust bravely through a catflap. It's been ages since you felt this terrified of speaking the truth, and the memory of you both sat crying on either side of Emily's old, front door resurfaces just as you tell her, "Ems, I want to come home."

* * *

**Post Script:** I can't say enough thanks for all your endless encouragement and support of this story. A special thanks to **naomilyfan**, though, who has come along for every one of my stories and says the sweetest things as one of the best guest reviewers on this site [in my humble opinion].


	23. Chapter 23

"I've got a favour to ask of you."

Without pause, Effy responds, "No, I won't have phone sex with you."

You stop mid-step on your way into the kitchen, eyeing the fridge like it's suddenly an appliance you don't recognise. "Um, yeah. Not what I was going to ask, Eff."

"Actually, I suppose I would if you asked nicely. But, I don't think I'd be able to pull off panting your name in husky breaths with much believability. And, I prefer not to half-arse a fuck."

"_Jesus_ – what the fuck are you on about?" You open the cupboard, staring at its contents but forgetting what you needed, then shut it forcefully a second later. "Why would you even think –"

"Basement 45. The night after exams when Cook nearly got arrested for dealing powder."

"Oh."

"I had an unfortunately-timed full bladder while you and Emily were in the toilets, presumably, _celebrating_ the end of term?"

"Oh, Christ."

"Cubicles have terribly thin walls, you know."

"Yeah, yeah _alright_. Got it. I told you – that's not why I fucking phoned."

Effy just laughs, low and light. "Sounds like you could use a shag anyway. Moody bitch." You're less often impressed by Effy's perceptiveness after so many years, and in particular when it's surrounding a sex life you currently don't have. "So, if you didn't ring to hear me wank off, then why did you?"

Frustration often leads to some of your best argumentative rows, but it's not Effy's fault you've gone without for seven months so you take a deep breath. Better to not engage, you think, when a lack of sex has already rendered you a bit tetchy. "I'm thinking of coming back. To London."

"Well, that should get you laid. Have you told Emily then?"

You take a deep breath, remembering the late night chat that was meant to simplify everything and instead has had your head spinning for two days. "Yeah."

"So then you're not _thinking_ of doing anything."

"What do you mean?" The kettle starts its low, hollow whistle just as you've come back into the sitting room, and you remember what it was you wanted from the cupboard. When you return to the kitchen, the assortment of teas Emily had sent for Christmas are spread beside the stove. You select a bag, tapping it against the countertop as you hear Effy light up.

"You wouldn't have told Emily a word unless you've already good and well solidified a plan, Naomi."

"Not exactly. I've got some things to sort out while I'm still here – work and stuff." You reach for a mug, crooking your finger around the handle so it dangles for a moment above the counter. Emily took her tea in it the morning she left, and you've not used it since. You feel a smile creep across your lips at the thought of it: Emily and shared mornings and cups of tea. "But, soon. I think." The mug meets the counter with a soft clink, and you trace a finger around it's rim while steaming billows rise from the kettle beside it.

"About fucking time," Effy says, and your smile brightens at her subdued excitement, which has always sounded more like indifference. "And what, you'd like me to organise your 'welcome home' party?"

"Sort of hoping you'd give me a home to come back to, actually. Temporarily, at least. I've been looking online a bit, but it's nearly impossible to search for flats when I'm not even in the fucking country."

"You're joking."

"I'm not, actually. Why – is there something wrong with me crashing on your sofa for a bit?"

"Any particular reason you'll not be shacking up with Emily?"

"No. I'm not doing that again," you tell her. And though Effy can't see it, you hope it reflects in your tone, the way you're shaking your head definitively.

"What are you talking about, Naomi?" Effy sounds exhausted suddenly even though you're the one up before sunrise on a Saturday.

"I _mean_ I'm not picking up my life again and moving it straight into Emily's bedroom – just, no."

"Jesus Christ – how long are you going to punish yourself for something you did at nineteen? Fucking hell, Naomi." She then spaces each word with generous pause between, emphasising like she's trying to help you understand a foreign language. "Let it go."

"I'm not fucking punishing anyone, alright? I'm just – I'm not ready for _everything_ all at once. So, can I stay with you or not?"

Effy won't make you place blame, especially not on someone so small. Someone so helpless. Someone so _not_ at fault for your insecurities. The innocent party, as it were, in this entirely complex arrangement. And it's always such a relief when Effy lets you tell her things without forcing you to say them out loud.

"Of course you can, you stupid twat."

"Cheers, Eff."

Effy sighs, as if considering a new colour for her nails, and then admonishes, "_'Not ready'_ to move in with your girlfriend. Some lesbian you turned out to be."

You laugh at her obvious disappointment because no one scoffs quite like Effy. But an hour or so later, her words still echo in your head. You've not thought of Emily that way – as your _girlfriend_ – as Effy so cavalierly suggested. Not in a very long time, anyway. It prompts another thought, one that almost makes you laugh again. Which is that this is how things seem to work for the two of you – the way you've always made these kind of massive life decisions without first discussing the implications. You've not equated your return to London with making Emily your girlfriend, just as you'd never once considered her to be anything of the sort the first time either.

* * *

Emily was always just Emily, until one day she wasn't.

Until one afternoon, a few days into the summer holiday, after that first year of sixth form that changed everything. Emily was sat at the foot of your bed in the midst of a heated conversation with Katie, who's squawking could be heard from where you lay at the other end. Humidity hung in the air of your bedroom, and the light breeze coming in through the open window didn't lessen it, only seemed to push it about since you could still feel it draped on your skin. Still, you kept a sheet pulled up to your shoulders while listening to Emily endure an earful from her sister. A creeping insecurity still lingered, back then, at the idea of lying starkers in front of Emily when not in the throes of passion.

There had been some confusion, apparently, on who was meant to cover for whom. And Katie had been immediately chained to the house upon stumbling home that morning, as a result. Forced to take the full brunt of Jenna's wrath and was insisting that Emily should be home too, to suffer alongside her. The solidarity of siblings you'd never understand. But Emily had argued that she didn't want to leave, that she shouldn't have to come running just because Katie'd been twatted at a house party and couldn't remember their arrangement. And you'd felt a bit proud of her – felt a bit relieved, too, that her declarations at the Love Ball hadn't been some fluke of adrenaline – that she was finally telling Katie to back the fuck off, when warranted. Which, in your opinion, was _always_.

Emily had then raised her voice in a tone of frustration reserved for Katie alone, and said, "No, Katie, she's not! She's my fucking _girlfriend_, for fuck's sake!"

And you'd maybe wanted to be angry, pre-emptively, about whatever Katie had suggested about you, except you couldn't actually focus on anything beyond the word: _girlfriend_. It was completely jarring, the indefinite concept of it shouted into the confines of your room. Because you'd been privy to some aspects of what having a girlfriend probably meant – the kissing and the shagging and the having-Emily-all-to-yourself for days at a time – and those bits had been fucking great. But, it was everything else you didn't know, all the expectations that being someone's _girlfriend_ mysteriously implied.

You'd been momentarily poised to correct her, ready to argue against labelling of any kind because, politically, you didn't subscribe to that sort of thing. People weren't meant to live in boxes and all that. But then Emily had looked at you, over her shoulder, and rolled her eyes from beneath that crooked fringe, smiling in this silly, little way of hers, as if she hadn't just been yelling at all. And your whole demeanour relaxed instantly, overcome with affection for the girl who was perched on your bed, in your tee shirt, defending your honour.

You'd done everything so utterly backwards to begin with. Realised you loved her. Shared kisses – once, twice, a smattering of instances. Slept with her. Run away. Fallen apart. Admitted your feelings. Discovered she loved you back.

And wasn't that the biggest word of all? Shouldn't a proclamation of _love_ trump every other syllable, ever other iteration of what you were to each other? Shouldn't anything else seem insignificant in light of that? And still, the word felt odd as it rolled around your head.

Even more odd had been hearing it in your own voice.

Your mum, famously imperceptive to a wide variety of teenage activity clocked by most parents, always had a sixth sense when it came to you and Emily. And it wasn't more than a week into that first summer holiday – the blissful one where your discovery of each other, in every sense of the word, was impenetrable to absolutely everything and everyone – that she confronted you on the 'small redhead' who'd been 'living in your pocket.' She'd thrown out a word like _dalliance_, while pouring your orange juice and making her eyes do that twinkling intuition thing you found generally infuriating. And you didn't like its implications. The way she'd cruelly minimised the idea of you and Emily, which to you felt _so massive_, no matter how innocent her intentions.

You could have fallen back on the time-honoured 'could you please mind your own fucking business' retort you'd perfected. But, in that moment, some surge of courage, or defiance, or perhaps a newfound protective nature over Emily, resulted in you informing your mum that Emily was in no way some casual, fucking tryst.

"Look, I've got a girlfriend now, alright? Alert the fucking press if you feel so inclined, but you can cease commenting on the frequency of her visits to our house, okay?"

Your cheeks still flushed and your palms grew clammy, curled into tight fists, but you didn't break eye contact, even withstanding the terribly pleased look she'd given you as she nodded quietly and joined you at the table without another word.

* * *

The contents of your flat are dwindling into half-packed boxes and piles to free-cycle or throw away. And you smile at the memory of yourself at seventeen, taking a framed photo of you at that age with your mum and folding it into newspaper. Of course she's long since relocated from Bristol, returning to the type of nomadic existence that's always suited her. It all lingers, though, even still – every inch of that yellow cottage infused in your memories, in your bones. All its scents and textures, its familiar creaks and imperfections. It'd have been a more comforting refuge during those long weeks after Manchester. You've always thought so. Instead you'd returned to the smaller flat that you'd mostly shared with Emily before university – the space that practically felt like she lived in the walls and carpets. It felt like hers. It felt like yours. You had no choice, really, no where else to go; but, it felt like the worst place to harbour yourself away.

* * *

Your mum stays put for the first few weeks, offering support in her own subtle ways: a tray of tea and biscuits left outside your bedroom door; a bottle of wine in the fridge with a note tied around its neck that reads: _'Chin up;'_ her hand applying gentle pressure to your shoulder caps as she passes you in the corridor or as she leaves you to sit quietly at the kitchen table. But then she's gone – because she can't stay still for long, and you're starting to think she's onto something – and things disintegrate rapidly into a blur of liquor bottles, sleepless nights, and loads of cigarettes. You've got about four days to pull your shit together before she gets back to find the place a fucking tip, like you've hosted some string of raging house parties. Except the guest list is down to one since you can't really stand the idea of being around others, and no one stayed behind in Bristol anyway [that you know of]. It's well lonely, and some days you can't even make it down the stairs into the garden to smoke your fags. Opting instead to cram them into the tray beside your bed, already full with crumpled filters, old ash, and a stench that makes you choke back an urge to toss.

On your way into town for more fags and a carton of juice [so that your mum doesn't think you've been pulling vodka straight from the bottle without mixers, which seemed appropriate at sixteen but sort of lowbrow at twenty], you pass through a park and make eye contact with an unexpectedly familiar face. JJ sort of balks when he sees you, the way he always has since slipping it to Emily and maybe even before then. And you've got no idea why seeing him gives you the urge to duck behind tree trunks or run in the opposite direction because you've never once considered JJ to be at all intimidating. Except that he's constantly blathering on about shit he shouldn't or bringing up topics that any marginally self-aware person would know to shut the fuck up about. What's worse, you then realise, is that JJ doesn't even know _not_ to bring up Emily, and so of course he will. And you'll have to fumble through some shit explanation that will make things even more awkward than they would be under normal circumstances.

But then, this _is_ normal now. Not having some stunted exchange with a college acquaintance in a bloody park, necessarily. But, being without Emily and confronting the reality of that in everyday conversations. It's rather obvious then that it's not seeing JJ that scares you but the inevitability of recognising that bleak, new reality.

"Hello, Naomi. Hi – I didn't know you were home."

"Hey, yeah." You stop a foot or so in front of each other and nod once. "Well, here I am."

"Right, so you are. Everyone's gone though, aren't they? Cook and Freddie have gone. Not together, but still, I don't see them except around Christmas. Effy's vanished again, but she's always been that way, I think, hasn't she? Not me though. Mum still needs me close by because it allows her to sleep better at night and, well, it doesn't seem like the hardest thing to do for her. Stay in Bristol, I mean."

"Right." You can't really think of anything more substantial to say because the idea of JJ being so selfless and sweet towards his mum kind of catches you off-guard.

Even though it _shouldn't_ because it's completely within his character to be kind to the people he loves. Instead you just nod again, trying to think of the best way to excuse yourself without sounding like the kind of abrasive twat he's probably always assumed you were.

Before you're able, though, JJ, being horribly predictable, just blurts out, "You're not with Emily then?" Something must register across your face – whether it furrows in pain or drains completely of colour – because JJ's eyes go wide and he starts twitching like he's seconds away from doing that _locked-on_ business you thought he'd have outgrown. "I just mean – well, I remember you were on your way to London, and she, well, Emily said she'd taken a spot in Manchester. And, it's a bit odd, really, imagining you without her – or her without you, really – or, I didn't mean without. But, separated, rather, as a technicality. It's just that, the distance from London to Manchester is nearly 270 kilometres, and, well, do you find it strange then? Being apart?"

It takes a concerted effort not to vomit on the pavement between you. And a second type of restraint not to give in to the stinging at the corners of your eyes. JJ just watches you, nervous and wide-eyed, while you try to force-start your lungs to expand and contract.

After swallowing back what feels like razors against the back of your throat, you look off to a gathering of trees in the distance, and tell him, "It's well strange, JJ."

There's not much else to be said, and only after you've said your awkward goodbyes do you realise what a tit you've been, not asking anything about JJ's life, or his mum, or his collection of hamsters or something. You don't think he noticed, though, since you can't remember anyone taking a real interest in him for all those years. Other than Emily, you think, correcting the memory. And then feel even worse at the thought. Because Emily, for all her faults, will always seem like the better person when considering your own deficiencies.

You'd meant to buy juice but end up with juice _and_ whiskey. And, though you've made a concerted effort as of late to acquire a matured palette, you can't even stand the taste of it when it's not served cold and cut with water or ginger beer. So every few sips you have to pause to keep from gagging and suck heavily on your cigarette before going back to the bottle. You finish almost half while sat in the park and then walk for nearly thirty minutes before realising you've not gone in the direction of your house. Everything is hazy, and not in a pleasant way, but in that getting drunk too quickly on an empty stomach in the middle of the day leaves you feeling uneasy and slightly ill. You collapse on a low wall that lines the front gardens of a house. The house sits on the corner of a street you know a bit too well. You'd done well avoiding this entire area of Bristol for three solid weeks, but leave it to your drunken limbs and wandering mind to land you here against your will. Operating a lighter proves more difficult when the floor beneath your feet tilts unexpectedly, and your hand juts out against the brick to stay upright. You manage to keep from falling over, but the cigarette breaks in the process, and you're throwing it angrily at your feet when a car slows at the corner.

And if you'd considered a run-in with JJ to be the oddest occurrence imaginable, it seems the universe is out to prove you horribly wrong.

There's this moment where you know she's seriously conflicted – you can see it in her narrowed, beady eyes – about looking the other way, driving on as if you'd not locked eyes. And you're kind of stuck where you are as well, at the moment not trusting the steady pounding in your chest any more than the stability of your knees and ankles. And so you put up a hand, attempting to wave and steadying your speech so as not to slur your greeting.

"Afternoon, Jenna."

Her face changes then – something you can't easily read thanks to all the fucking whiskey – and you think she's about to speak through her open window. And though you've never in your life felt the need to explain yourself to her, you sense _again_ the way your body's about to betray you. "I'm just taking a walk, you know – enjoying my fucking day, alright?"

She frowns then, and you think it's probably because you've lost the ability to annunciate properly. So you push on with a bit more effort. "I didn't come here to stalk your bloody minivan or anything, if that's what you think."

She closes her mouth again, where it had been slightly agape, like she's stopping whatever words that had formed from falling out. Watching her turns some sick twisting in your stomach because in four whole years, you've not ever associated any habits of Emily's to a thing she could share with her _mother_. Jenna checks her mirrors for any other cars approaching before pulling the automobile up to the kerb and turning it off.

"Shitting hell," you mumble, glancing down to your trainers [untied] and your top [missing buttons] and your very obvious bottle of liquor on the wall beside you [half-empty].

"Naomi." Your head whips around to find her stood much closer, but it's the _way_ she says your name – soft and cautious and completely unfamiliar – that stops your breathing. "What've you done to your hand?"

You turn your wrist so its palm-side up, resting it on your thigh, and look down to where the skin is broken, and tiny gaps in your hand are filled with bits of crumbled mortar. "Shit." The small amounts of blood have made dotted patterns on your blue leggings.

"You should –" Jenna takes a deep breath, midsentence, like she's struggling with the concept of mothering someone she's never really liked "—would you let me clean that up?"

"What? No – I mean, no thanks," you say, flipping your hand back down so that your leggings – ruined now anyway – can soak up whatever blood still surfaces. "I can't even feel it."

She sits down then, timid almost in the way she clasps her hands together on her knees, and eyes the bottle on the wall between you. "Yes, well, you will. Better to have dealt with salves and bandages before then, don't you think?"

You don't say anything just look back to your hands, trying to focus on the pair of them without seeing doubles, and finally close your eyes when things start to spin. "No, I'm fine." You swallow roughly at the soured taste of whiskey on your tongue and then repeat, "I'm fine."

"Why don't you just – well, I've got plasters at the house –"

"_No_." You look over at her, trying for defiance. And finality. What you're left with is a shaky chin and watery eyes, so you look back to the pavement between your feet. "I can't – I won't go there."

Jenna's quiet '_Oh_' is so pitying, you want to yell for her to stop. You want to tell her to bloody leave you alone because she's only making it worse. It feels so much worse, this act of kindness she's forcing you both to endure.

"I'll just – well, I'll just give you a lift then."

When you look up to her again, she's managed a smile that's more sincere than she's ever offered you.

"You really don't have to –"

"Up you go then." She stands while reaching for your elbow. "You're in no state to make it there on your own."

Drunk or not, as you allow yourself to be led towards the minivan, you can feel the subtle tremor of her grip against your arm.

Only after she's pulled up to the flat – after somehow following your haphazard co-piloting – do you remember the state of it. But the liquor is hitting you in these heavy waves, and you're having difficulty with motor functions as much as the English language.

"Can I ring your mum?" Jenna finally asks, once she's deposited you on the front steps as you refuse to hand over your key.

"She's Athens. She's gone to Athens," you say, fighting to keep your head upright.

"I see." Jenna's hovering somewhere above you, wringing her hands. "Naomi, please. It could get infected if we don't –"

"Can't go in, _can't," _you insist. "It's shit – it's all shit." Your head tips back against the door at your back and your eyes close. "You can't fucking go in there. She'd kill me if you saw it like that. She'd fucking kill me."

Jenna says something quietly about keeping schtum, that your mum would be grateful she'd not left you to bleed on the stoop, and then digs through your bag until she retrieves a key. As she helps you to your feet and leads you inside the flat, you briefly try to recall if you'd mentioned your mum at all.

The absolute wreckage of the place is only magnified by the vague knowledge that Jenna Fitch is experiencing it alongside you. Meanwhile, across town, children with poor immune systems could be eating off her floors because the woman keeps them so fucking spotless. But she says nothing of it, silently clearing a spot on the sofa for you to lie down.

And then she's fretting again, stood beside the sofa; and you wish she'd just leave you alone to bleed in peace already. "Sorry, the loo is just …"

"Top of the stairs," you tell her, your head resting on one of your mum's scratchy pillows and your eyes feeling all too heavy to keep open.

Jenna returns with enough supplies for casualties of war, but when you try to sit up she nearly shushes you back down. And if that doesn't sober you instantly, what she says next certainly does.

"You've got to take better care of yourself, Naomi. You might not believe it, but she'd not want this for you."

She's dabbing at your hand with disinfectant, keeping her eyes locked on the task while she speaks. A clear head is fleeting, you know, based on your sheer consumption of brown liquor. But the anger you can feel like an actual heat source, and so you cling to it.

"I don't _care_ what she wants." You consider pulling your hand away and making this all stop, _finally_. But Jenna's grip is rather strong. Just as it always has been.

You're not sure how she's managed it – to look so stern while still offering that motherly warmth you've never before seen – but when she meets your eye, it's all there. "Yes, of course you do, dear."

The tears are silent at first, still laced with anger and forming in pockets at the corners of your eyes as you bite back any sobs that might draw attention. And Jenna's gone back to tending to your hand, taking time to wrap the wound with precision while averting your eyes now bleary with tears. She's manicured and coiffed and dressed in the clean, understated fashion you've always associated with her. She's a stark pillar of order amidst all the chaos of your degenerative lifestyle. Empty cans of cider litter the floor at her feet and half-finished cartons of pungent take-away clutter every surface, including the one where she's sat. It reeks of spliff, you know it does, but if that weren't enough indication, she'd also moved rolling papers and an ashtray off the coffee table in order to perch lightly on its edge. It's a fucking disgraceful nightmare you wish would end.

"She doesn't –" you start, pausing to swallow, to close your eyes and breath. And then try a bit more forcefully, "You can't tell her I'm here."

She purses her lips, continues to avoid catching your eye, and then ignores your demand entirely. "Emily comes around to things in her own time, you know. And she won't be told otherwise." She's finished with the wound now and gently places your hand back onto the sofa so you can curl it against your chest. She chances a smile, though it's a sad one, as she stares into her own lap. "Learned that the hard way, didn't I?"

You think about the summer when you stole Emily away – when she let herself be taken like a willing hostage. It'd felt like victory, every morning you woke and she was still there. Every time you reached out for her and found her fingers reaching back for yours. Every time you turned up at the street corner, feeling your stomach tense with nervous anticipation, until you could see the first sign of her. It'd felt like winning a gruesome battle, and you'd done it all without remorse. Without considering any injury to the opposition. To Jenna least of all. But you think of it now, you think of her and that aching sense of loss. You don't want to share a commonality with this woman. You don't want to think of her as an ally when she's always done so well at playing the enemy.

"I don't know how." The emotion breaks you then, though you'd fought against it. You cover your face, shielding it with your hand and smell the sterilisation of your bandages. "I don't know how to let her go and still be okay."

Jenna breathes out. And you can't look at her because it's bad enough just knowing she's there without confirming it with your eyes. If you're going to fall apart in the presence of someone you can't really trust, then better to at least hide your face away. But you know she's sat there, on the repulsive surface of the coffee table, with her hands clasped together on her knees.

"You will though. You'll figure it all out."

Your hand drops a bit so you can look over at her, sat just as you'd imagined. "What makes you so sure that I'm capable of fucking _anything_?"

"Because I learnt how, and you're a stronger person for Emily than I'll ever be."

The room suddenly feels too quiet, for all the words filling it up. And your head has started to throb, so you cover your eyes again after inelegantly wiping your nose with the back of your hand. After a few horrible attempts at pulling yourself together, you finally turn into the back of the sofa and wait for it to all be over.

Jenna says quietly, "Right, so then I'll just return these to the cabinet and be on my way."

It's not until she's left the room that you manage a soft '_thank you_' that she'll never hear.

When you wake up, you're entirely out-of-sorts because it's quite dark in the room, and you can't remember falling asleep. Your confusion only worsens with the searing pain behind your eyes and a dull throb in your right hand. Cautiously, so as not to amplify the pain in your skull, you start to move. There's a shaft of light coming in from the kitchen that falls along an armchair and half of the coffee table. It's the first thing you notice – the table – but then your head is spinning too quickly to focus on any, one thing. Blankets are folded on the backs of chairs. Every surface has been cleared of rubbish, the table in front of you wiped clean and it's typical contents – TV remote, ratty paperbacks on gardening, doilies your mum uses for fucking coasters – are _organised_. Your mouth, gone dry from extreme dehydration, now feels more like the Sahara as it all sinks in. You move into the kitchen, and it's no better in there because the lighting only exaggerates the cleanliness. Everything's spotless – the dishes not just cleared and washed, but gone _completely_, tucked into the cupboards. You fetch a glass of water, sit at the table that now has a faint scent of vinegar and lemon, and stare blankly at your bandaged hand.

* * *

You've been packing for what feels like eleven straight hours, but where boxes are still everywhere – half-filled and unlabelled – it all seems relatively insurmountable. The chime on your phone goes from where it's charging in the kitchen, and when you get to it, a picture text from Emily is waiting for you.

_We miss you_, it says. _Pack faster._

Emily's bottom lip is protruding pitifully – _adorably_, if you're being honest – but Lewis can't help smiling, his tiny fingers reaching out towards the camera's lens. You lean against the counter's edge with your hip and smile down at the pair of them, running your finger along the slope of Emily's nose and imagining how her eyes would close at the touch. You look around then with a heavy sigh, considering all your things strewn about. And it's maybe forty, forty-five seconds before you think, _Right, fuck it_.

It takes less time to look up the number than it takes to get an actual human on the line, but once you've got Sheila or Sherry, or whoever she is, assisting you it's all quite straightforward. She asks what it is she can help you with this evening.

You take one more look around before falling back into the cushions of your sofa and tell her, "I've booked a flight to London that's scheduled in a few weeks. I'd like to change that reservation."

Sheila says, "Great!" And you can't believe that some people are actually paid to have this level of invested response when helping perfect strangers. She then asks when you're hoping to travel.

So you say, "How soon can you get me there?"

* * *

**Post Script:** I know there was a bit of a wait on this one, but the longer I sat with this, the more I wrote. And the more I wrote, the better I felt about it. Your words on the last chap meant the world to me, so thanks for being so lovely. I know this update didn't turn out as cheery as I'd expected, but rest assured, I'm quite ready to end this separation period for our girls. Looking forward to hearing your thoughts, as per. Ta!


	24. Chapter 24

**Author's Note:** Hello, you beautiful lot. I've missed you. It's been far too long. I've been very lax in updating, I realise, though it's not without good reason. But I'll have some things to say about it at the close of the chapter. I'll not keep you waiting any longer by blathering on now.

* * *

The cab ride from Heathrow to Emily's flat isn't long enough for you to get things properly sorted. Your head's a basic shitstorm of racing thoughts and possible outcomes of this ill-conceived plan. And the term _plan_ should be applied loosely as it's hardly that. A whim, perhaps, would more accurately describe how it is you've landed yourself in this taxi, or better still, how you first ended up on a redeye from New York to London. It's pretty intense, the nervous pulsing beneath your skin – in your sweaty palms and in each, rapid tapping of your foot against the floor board. It's worse than that time you interviewed with senior designers at The Whitney, only to realise partway through you'd popped a button on your top, leaving a gaping hole between your breasts. [A wonder you hadn't heard back on that position, actually.] It's worse than being a lousy, first-year intern, presenting a proposal for design schemes in a room of artists with far more experience and very little interest. It's worse than every time you've sat at Jenna Fitch's dining table, feigning confidence while, in reality, shitting yourself that she'd finally decided to go ahead and poison your aubergine flan.

You've not really slept either, which you know is serving to exacerbate the anxiety. But an ambien and two vodkas on the plane couldn't put you under for more than an hour. Nothing, it seems, can lessen the thrill of coming back. Of coming back _to her_.

You hop out of the cab a full three blocks from Emily's, deciding to walk the rest of the way, in an attempt to work out a bit of your nerves with fresh air in your lungs. You sling your bag – only a small rucksack – over a shoulder and start off down the street.

Several paces from Emily's, you realise [not for the first time, but with some additional clarity] you've not thought out any of this grand plan _at all_. And any panic that may have subsided from the morning air and your brisk pace, surges back in that instant. Essentially, you've dropped out of the sky into jolly, old England, like some kind of fucking Bond spy. With Emily, and Effy for that matter, none the wiser. It all seemed to make perfect sense back in your own flat, in your own city; and the excitement you felt when ringing a taxi service and shovelling a few, spare belongings into your bag couldn't be contained. Turning up to Emily's unannounced to lavish her with kisses and heartfelt proclamations – how terribly romantic, you'd thought. After all, not that long ago, Emily had done, and look how well _that_ turned out. Your skin sort of buzzes with a quick heat at the memory of it – Emily straddling you on the sofa, or pushing you against the kitchen sink, or waking you with soft touches.

You've slowed your stride and must look like a grinning idiot because a woman passes by on the pavement, and she's definitely given you a look of serious concern. It's four doors to Emily's flat, and you can already see it – the red one with its paint chipping – from where you've now come to a complete standstill.

All that excitement, however, had apparently left you somewhere over the Atlantic because the only thing you now sense is a sickly anxiety. The thing is, Emily could very well not even be there. She could be teaching, if only you'd managed to memorise her sodding class schedule. Or she could be writing, tucked away in some quiet coffee shop or the university's library. Or maybe she's gone to that musty, old bookshop, run by the old man who adores her, that she'd written about in a letter you received in Savannah. Not to mention the weather, being uncharacteristically lovely, might also mean she's taken Lewis to the park – the one Emily likes, not because it's particularly sanitary or conveniently located, but because it reminds her of a playground near her home in Bristol. The one where you'd told her you loved her that one time – stoned on spliff and cheap wine – while laid in the grass, looking up for stars hidden away behind the clouds. And she'd sighed in response and taken your hand, like even though it wasn't the first time she'd heard you say it, it would always _feel_ like the first time.

But the fact remains, you think, taking a few steps until you're in front of the red door, that Emily's not likely sat around, drumming her fingers, and waiting for you to turn up at ten in the morning on a random Tuesday. Not when, in another two weeks, she's meant to be meeting you at the airport for your _scheduled_ arrival.

But of course you couldn't wait. You couldn't resist the idea of arriving early, turning up at her flat without warning, and getting to experience that look on her face.

It's been years, of course, since an opportunity like this has presented itself. Since you've felt this compelled to tell every other facet of your life to get fucked for the sake of Emily. For the sake of being _with_ Emily. And it's sort of remarkable, recognising this pattern in which you let yourself fall prey to the absolute ends of desperation – that place that's full of morbid panic – when it comes to her. That place where you've always feared you might claw at the skin of your face or gouge your eyes, in uncontrolled frenzy, just to relieve some of the blinding pain. Because anything, _anything_ must feel better than being without her.

The first time would always appear largest, in recollection. All that angst and despondence of which only teenagers are capable – crying through catflaps and making declarations at college balls. It wasn't really courage that landed you in Jenna's kitchen that morning, asking after Emily. It was sheer desperation. You'd then taken on university with an arrogant naivety, convinced that all that business about separation and longing had been grossly exaggerated by the likes of Keats or the bloody Brownings. Truthfully, it's often that _nothing_ seems bigger than the events that led you to Manchester. It didn't help that the distance between you was nearly manageable. Like it was a greater torture to function without her when Emily was so close. Hardly more than a short train ride away. You've often wondered if you could have survived it, avoided the worst of it, if only the distance were greater. If you'd taken a gap year to study fucking sea turtles or sell beaded jewellery in Anguilla while Emily took a liberal arts education in someplace like San Francisco or Berkeley. Forcing you both, by inconvenience alone, to learn a life apart. But then, it's useless to go back and recount how things might have gone under different circumstances. And knowing what you now know, the distance is hardly relevant. Something tells you you'd have found your way back to her – by swimming oceans or as a boxcar stowaway – just the same.

Of course, as things happened, you'd crumbled under the weight of it all, left early one morning, on a day when you should have been studying methodologies and conceptual problems of the early Roman empire, and turned up on an unfamiliar campus in search of Emily. You'd considered briefly, smoking your fourth cigarette on the steps of what you hoped was the English building, that Emily would send you away – that she'd frogmarch you back to the train station and demand your return to London. She'd be annoyingly level-headed, insisting you both 'stick to the plan' of separate universities and separate cities in order to become 'better people' for each other. Because although you were loath to admit it, and although she fought against it in her own way, there was something of a sound, rational, Fitch-bred mentality lingering in her psyche. Something she couldn't entirely shirk, despite her _rebelliously_ having a girlfriend, or striking out on her own in a new city, or creating her own individuality, apart from the one predestined for her by Jenna and Katie. Emily had a tendency to do whatever she pleased, but she'd also been reared in rationality. Meanwhile your own mum's parenting tactics were inconsistent at best and at most completely, fucking mental.

It felt a bit mental, in fact, standing on those steps in not enough layers and shivering horribly with each unsteady inhale of your cigarette. But then you'd seen her, emerging from the building with loads of others, though entirely distinct in her own, Emily Fitch sort of way. Understated, and yet completely unique. And you'd smiled at the thought of her – this petite, feisty, adoring girl, with brash red hair contrasting a sweet, shy smile – being yours. That you'd somehow, without really trying, managed to keep her for yourself, away from all these other people. That even while actively resisting the idea of her, Emily knew better – sweetly badgering you into accepting what you really wanted. What you'd wanted all along. They'd never know it, this lot passing you by. They'd never have that sense of loss at not having her in that way – all to themselves as you did – and yet you'd pitied them just the same. At Emily's frowning face, you'd fully grinned, knowing she'd no doubt feared having left her mobile inside [a constant occurrence of her forgetfulness]. And then tossed the end of your fag over a banister before heading up the steps towards her. It was like swimming upstream, weaving clumsily between the crowds of students with your stupid, oversized carry-all, but worth every rude look or rough bump against your shoulder when you'd glanced up to see the look on her face.

It's the memory of that look that makes you smile, paused where you are near an iron gate on Emily's quiet street, because you can see it so perfectly. The way her eyes went wide and her lips, parted slightly, twitched in confusion until a smile tugged them upwards. It's enough – the anticipation of seeing her face, and all the lovely things it does – to push you forward up the walk.

You hear the door chime go from inside and then wait, adjusting the strap of your rucksack and nervously biting your lip. A minute feels like thirty, and you can't detect any movement from inside, so you step back, checking the time on your mobile. When less than two minutes have passed, your hand reaches out again towards the door, but you pull it back to grip the strap of your bag and count to twenty. Still nothing. So you again reach forward and hear the muffled chime, trying to keep your breaths measured, your heart rate steady. You're about to send a text, resigned to a foiled plan, when you hear quick footsteps. And your heartbeat races as you stand up straight, clenching at the hem of your tee shirt.

It's quiet again for long seconds where your nervousness continues to spiral out of control, and then you hear your name, like a reprimand, from behind the door.

"Naomi Campbell, tell me you are _not_ stood on my doorstep."

It takes a few beats to actually work up a response because you'd not exactly planned for this sort of reaction. But then, it's still Emily's voice. And the sound of it is so close, you press your hands to the doorframe and lean in to be nearer to it.

"I am, actually."

"How the fuck are you – why didn't you _tell_ me?" Her voice sounds a fraction louder, and you glance down to see she's opened the letterbox at your knees.

You crouch down then, resting on your haunches, and speak through the narrow space. Cautiously, because she's pretty wound up, you explain, "I thought you liked surprises?"

You can just make out the corner of her mouth as she answers, the rest of her face shadowed by the angle. "There are surprises, and then there's _you_ turning up from across a bloody ocean when I've not even had a shower or cleaned the breakfast dishes, and I –"

"Em, I just needed to speak with you, and – look, are we seriously going to continue this conversation through a fucking letterbox?"

After a pause and a distinctly _Emily_ sigh, a latch clicks softly, and you stand, holding your breath.

When she pulls back on the door, her face is doing something lovely, as you knew it would. The fading shock and realisation showing at the corners of her mouth, in the perfect gleam of those dark brown eyes. You'd planned to say something profound, like _hello_ or _I've missed you_, but seeing her renders you absolutely speechless. Your mouth just gapes open as a breath quietly escapes.

"You weren't meant to see it – not like this, obviously," Emily says with a frown, tugging at a few, tangled strands of hair.

You struggle not to reach out and touch it – the length of it shortened just above her shoulders and its shade the loveliest hues of dark reds and browns. Like the wild cherries that grew along the property line of a commune from your youth, dipped in chocolate. Like the colour of something you'd want to lick from the tips of your fingers.

"This isn't fair," she pouts, still not stepping back enough to let you into flat. Not that it matters, since you've completely lost sensation in your legs and feet. "You arriving when I look like basic shite."

"Emily," you say, biting back a smile, because in a hundred years you can't imagine her looking anything less than marvellous, "can you let me inside, please?"

"I don't suppose you'd give me ten minutes to clean up a bit?" she asks, squinting one eye closed and twisting her mouth in a way that makes it impossible not to stare at it.

"No! I've just spent the last eight hours on an overnight flight – I could give a shit about your dirty dishes," you say with an eye roll.

Emily bites at her lip, fiddles again with an unruly curl beside her ear and then takes one step back. You follow with a step forward and then move further into the flat in this manner – one step forward, one step back like a slow-timed waltz. Emily's clicked the door shut behind you by the time it all starts to settle into the air. The atmosphere thick with it. That you've made it. That you've come back for good. That you've done so with such little forethought. [_Stubbornly impetuous_, your mum would tut.] That she's finally stood there, right in front of you, an arm's length away. Emily must be experiencing something similar – must sense the particles changing around you – because as you take a deep breath you watch her struggle to swallow.

Everything's different this time, or so it should be. So unlike the uncertainties that surrounded your time together at Christmas. Because things have been said, sentiments expressed, letters written, decisions made – like international flights and submitted resignations. So you can't quite figure where the hesitations and nervousness are stemmed. Except that Emily's dressed in decidedly unattractive attire – old track shorts and a threadbare tee shirt without a hint of make-up – and has never looked more alluring. Your mouth goes dry at the thought of being any closer to her than you already are, and perhaps that's accounting for some of the nerves.

"So, you wanted to maybe explain why it is that you're here, in my flat, when you're not scheduled to arrive for two more weeks?" Emily's wearing this challenging expression, one you've not ever been able to resist for how fucking attractive it is.

So you shrug, look off towards her kitchen and then say, "Oh, I was just, you know, in the neighbourhood."

She's smirking when you look back to catch her eye, and if she'd looked irresistible before, the fact that you're both still vertical is a fucking miracle at this point. "That so?"

There's a heat in your chest, and you think it could mean you've broken out in hives or something because you've got an urge to start itching at the skin there. It's come down to this moment, and you can actually feel the pressure of it threatening to collapse all around you. It's now or never, and you didn't come all this way to be evasive about _why_ you're there.

"Yeah, it's a nice area," you tell her. Emily begins eyeing you curiously while you're both leant up against opposite walls of the entryway. "I'm thinking of finding a place here, actually. In this, um, neighbourhood."

"You're being awfully coy," she says, folding her arms along her stomach.

Your breath almost catches before you can say, "Am I?"

She then takes a step forward, just one, as she's saying your name. It's a lethal combination, and you almost shudder in response. "Tell me the truth."

"I want – can't we just –" Everything feels heavy in your chest, and exhaling is more of a struggle than any sort of release. "Well, I thought we could just be here. You know, together?"

Her voice barely audible, Emily says, "What?"

"I want to stay here," you swallow, losing air by the second, "with you. I don't want to crash at Effy's, and I don't want to look for a sodding flat that I'll not even use half the time because I'm here for you, Em. I'm here to be _with_ you."

It's sort of like that time in your kitchen back in Brooklyn, but better. Because you're not caught off-guard in the least. Because it's not just the reaction you've anticipated, it's the one you desperately wanted. And so you grab onto any part of her you can while Emily's mouth goes mad against your own. Sighing into the contact, you feel every ounce of tension lift from your neck and shoulders where Emily's got hold to pull herself up. The kisses are speaking volumes, everything you've ridiculously avoided saying aloud – _I've missed you, I've wanted this, I love you_. You reach up to thread your fingers through her hair, and she falls in that much closer. When you push back into her and Emily stumbles, breaking apart for a breath of air, you remember there's more you're meant to tell her. And more she needs to know before agreeing to this slapdash proposal.

Holding her face between your hands, you then say in a rush of emotion, adrenaline from fresh kisses now fuelling your speech. "I mean it. I want to do this – I don't care what we call it, but I want to do _this_ indefinitely." Emily presses her lips together firmly, doesn't break eye contact for anything. "I don't – fuck, I don't have a ring, I don't even have a _job_," you laugh, resting your forehead to hers. "But I want this – me and you, and Lewis as well, when he's not with his other mum. I can't do this partway, okay? I can't be here without being _right here_, like this. And I just want to be sure you know that I mean –"

"Shut up, you idiot," Emily laughs, pulling on your shoulders and tilting her head until your mouth again meets with hers.

She tugs at your bag first, which you quickly deposit near the front door, but it's then your jacket and tee shirt with which she finds offense. And you sort of wonder, struggling to strip from them without losing contact with her lips and tongue, if this will become some kind of new standard – discarding clothing in common areas, along doorways and corridors.

"God," Emily breathes into your chest, her lips no longer reaching yours because she's not raised up on her toes. And Emily, in bare feet, is extremely short. She kisses all the heated skin there that's no longer breaking out in nervous rashes but in steeped arousal. "I've missed you." She lays her palms flat against your stomach and fans her fingers wide. "I've missed you so fucking much."

It takes little to no effort to spin her about so you can push her in any direction you please, and your mouth is back on hers – open, hungry, greedy with want.

You start towards her bedroom, guiding Emily backwards down the corridor, but she redirects into the sitting room, and says in-between increasingly sloppy kisses, "No, in here – I don't want to wake Lewis."

She's guided you back into the sofa and moves to straddle your lap when your brain, lagged from so much physical contact, catches up to what she's said. "Wait – what? Lewis is _here_?"

Emily smiles, places kisses along your neck and just below your left ear. "He's down for his morning nap," she says, sliding the strap of your bra off your shoulder and kissing the skin there.

"Well, what if – what if he wakes up? What if he _hears_ us?"

She sighs, sits back to remove her own shirt, casually, as if you'd just asked about the weather. She's not even wearing a bra, just those crappy track short that have ridden up so high, you're now seeing more of her than you have in far too long. And, well, that effectively distracts you from any other fucking thing. Emily holds your face between her hands, smiles sweetly and tells you, "Relax. He's quite a sound sleeper on an extremely regular schedule. But," she cranes her neck towards the clock, and you watch all the tendons twist and flex as she does. "He'll be up in another half hour, so," and then she nods pointedly towards your chest, "I'd kind of like to get on with the business of, you know, seeing you naked already."

It's a difficult request to turn down, particularly when your body is already responding to the minimal contact you've had. To the weight of Emily pressing into you and all the skin she's so recently exposed. It's all a lot to take on, and you glance quickly around the room where countless remnants of a life you've yet to experience lay about. It's a life you don't fully understand, can't possibly comprehend until you've fully committed – thrust yourself into it. It should be terrifying, and maybe there is an emotion of sorts lingering somewhere behind everything else that's more prevalent. Because, at the moment, you can see only her. And for as long as you can remember, Emily – seeing her, wanting her, needing to be with her – has always been the only thing that mattered. So you smirk up at her, run the tips of your fingers down her chest and onto the slope of her breasts until her eyes fall closed and her head tips back.

"Well," you start, leaning forward until you can reach a nipple, taking it slowly into your mouth and then releasing it with a soft _pop_. "I had no idea, Emily."

She grips onto your shoulders when you take the second nipple, softly roll your tongue around until it peaks, and she croaks out, "What?"

"That you'd grown to be so _incredibly_ romantic."

You're not sure how sound of a sleeper Lewis actually is, but you hope Emily meant he sleeps like the dead. Because she's not tried, even a little, to keep things quiet. She instead comes loudly, into open air; and it echoes like the city's been emptied, leaving only you and her to fill its vast space. You kiss your way back up her body, taking time to recall every detail. You'll forget later – the curvature of each breast, the markings along her stomach, the angles of her hipbones – and be forced to take her again. The memory needs constant reminders, repetition to strengthen. And solidifying these memories of her will become your favourite exercise. You're finally level with her again and bury your face in her neck, in that gorgeous hair.

"Jesus," Emily says, her chest still rising and falling in heavy breaths, and you just laugh into the warm nook you've found.

The room goes quiet again, peaceful with the sound of her breathing as it starts to slow, and you absently find her fingers to lace together, pull apart, and find again.

"Em?"

She hums, unhooks her fingers from yours and starts to move them slowly up your arm and back down.

"About what I said." You're anxious again, just like that. A knot in your throat that you can't work down because Emily hadn't really said anything. She'd responded in other ways – with her hands and mouth and the heady scent still trapped between you. And it's ridiculous that those things aren't answer enough. But still, it's a big ask. Her response is so obvious, and yet you need to hear her say it.

Your heartbeat start to accelerate, and you wonder if she can feel them – the way your chest is pressed against her side. You don't need to see her face to know she's smirking, her mouth crooked up in such a way, because you can actually hear it in her tone. "Which part – when you admitted to having come here to leach off my pitiful salary as an unemployed waif?"

Emily laughs lightly, finding herself to be fucking hilarious obviously, and you smile because it really is a lovely sound. But then, clearing your throat, you say, "Well, that and … everything else?"

She starts to shift, disrupting the crevice along her neck where you'd settled. Where you felt safe and warm and content to stay for as long as she'd allow. Emily wants you to look at her, though. She wants you to see that you have no secrets. That everything you've told her – everything you've yet to tell her – she already knows. It's how things have always worked between you. You'll faff about, bury your head in the sand, refuse to acknowledge what's been happening, what you've been feeling, what's been bound to transpire all along. And Emily will sit patiently, prod when it's needed, waiting with open ears to listen when you come to tell her that you've figured it all out. She's clever, Emily is, but when it comes to the business of you, of being with you, she's a fucking genius.

Her gaze is so warm, the way she watches you with so much open affection, it's instantly better than being pressed to the skin of her neck. She licks her lips and leans in to kiss you, soft and subtle, but incredibly slow, so that when she pulls back, you have to catch your breath.

Emily smiles, and it's a little less sincere and a lot cheeky, when she answers, "It took you fucking long enough."

* * *

**Post script:** Firstly, THIS IS NOT THE END! Though we're nearing it, I'll be back for more. You won't be rid of me that easily. I think, if things go swimmingly, we'll have one last actual chapter and then the epilogue.

So onto the topic of updates. I've been doing a bit of work on the story as a whole, which has drastically reduced my allotted time to write new material, progressing the story along. It can be frustrating, leaving so much time between updates, but the project of revising old chapters has actually been extremely rewarding and helpful in closing out the story. And there's good news! The newly revised chapters - which have been significantly lengthened in some parts, and changed entirely in others - are being posted over on AO3. Feel free to give them a look if you're curious/interested/bored with life.

Again, I cannot say enough thanks for all your warm wishes and kind words on this story. It continues to be something I love doing, and I'm so pleased we're able to share in it together. Naomilyfan, you are my shining star - eternally apologetic for the lapse in updates.


	25. Final Chapter

**Author's Note:** Well, here we are ... the final chapter. I can't actually believe it's happened. Because, save for the epilogue, mates, this is it. More to say at the close, but hang on tight. As I'm prone to do, this chapter jumps around a bit in the beginning. Alright, here we go.

* * *

It happens on your third Saturday in London. When some of the novelty has dimmed and now it's just you and her, and sometimes a baby, in this new space. Your first full week – the one following your arrival – had been a wildly blurred sexual marathon of sorts. With Lewis back with Rose, you didn't have much reason to not remain naked for days on end. Emily mostly kept you in nothing but bed linens or blankets, and it was fortunate, actually, since you'd hardly brought more than three outfits to London.

You wake up tangled in the bedclothes, in limbs that aren't your own. You wake to kisses along your neck and spine, to roaming hands and hot breaths. Your muscles ache, but you don't let the exertion tire you. You allow nothing, in fact, to deter the contact that Emily craves – that you crave in equal measure.

When Lewis returns the following week, you struggle to find your place in a pre-existing routine that's constantly happening all around you; and it's far from simple. It's consistently frustrating, actually, like trying to fit a square peg [you] into a round hole [them] over and over without success. And Emily's either unaware or feigning oblivion to avoid broaching the subject. Either way, by the time that third Saturday's come around, your blood is heated to a boil, ready to bubble over the edge, where you're stood in the sitting room. And Emily's face looks shocked and saddened, ill-prepared for this kind of row so soon after you've found your way back to her. But, it's too dangerous – letting things simmer just below the surface, unsaid – and this much you've learnt. So it's time to test the stock – to see if the pieces of your lives that you and Emily have hastily fastened back together can hold the weight of the life you're trying to create.

* * *

Your boxes, some of them anyway, arrive one morning a few days after your arrival when Lewis is asleep and Emily is reading and you're reaching out to contacts who have previously promised you employment, should you ever leave New York. Much like everything else she does, Emily reads adorably. Folded, as she is, into an armchair near the windows and so entranced in what she's reading, her brow is furrowed and her mouth hangs slightly parted as her lips move along with each word. Her hair doesn't stay in place as easily now it's shorter, particularly not in the morning when it's full of messy, wandering curls. And so she's left to tuck the stubborn bits behind her ear, only to have them fall back along her face moments later. It's more than a bit distracting, and you've repeatedly had to bite your lip and shake your head just to return your attention to the laptop in front of you. Return your attention to the task of securing employment instead of watching Emily doing completely adorable _Emily_ things.

Lewis wakes when the movers enter the flat, their voices rather gruff and their movements sort of loud in what had been, moments before, such a peaceful flat. Even after they've gone, Lewis still won't settle. And Emily just apologises for his mood, sweeping him off to the nursery before you can comment on how you'd go mental as well if a crew of men barged in and disrupted _your_ nap. But then you're left standing alone in the crowded corridor, stacks of boxes on both walls, though it suddenly feels rather empty.

* * *

The first time you see Rose, it's entirely unexpected and _mostly_ uneventful.

Emily's in the shower, and you're meant to join her, but just as you've ended a call to an art director in Camden, there's a knock at the door. It's still all a bit awkward – living in a flat that you share with Emily, though not exactly feeling any ownership to your surroundings – but if it's a parcel delivery or a sales call, you feel fully equipped to interact. So you head towards the door with almost a bounce in your step.

What you'd not planned on then, is being met with a familiar pair of hazel eyes, their similarity to Lewis' more unsettling than before for how much time you've now spent with him. It's Rose's week with Lewis so you can't imagine why she'd be coming round, though that line of thought is all terribly irrelevant as you now find her standing on Emily's front steps.

And you've known the confrontation is inevitable. Rose still being very much a part of Emily's life, and now yours, by proxy. But you're unprepared for just how complex your feelings on seeing her will be. Everything ranging from malicious anger to a sickening unease courses through you in that first second upon opening the door. It's one of the things you've not talked much about. Emily spoke very little about the incident in her letters. But what little she had said – all those months ago, a broken mess in your hotel room – comes flooding back as you're stood there, looking for benign words that will unfurl your clenched fists.

You finally decide on,"Oh, hi." You say it coolly and without much welcoming inflection. You've managed to dress for the day, in Emily's old tee shirt and shorts at least. Even still, you cling to the door like a shield of defence.

"Oh, Naomi. Hello – I hadn't, well I wasn't sure if you'd be here."

You're initially distracted by her statement, wondering suddenly if Emily's neglected to fill Rose in on the fact that you've returned. Or, that you've returned to be _with_ her. Or, that you've moved into her flat on a permanent basis. But then it's odd, seeing Rose so uncertain of herself – so clearly caught by surprise – and that becomes more distracting than Emily's possible omissions. Seeing Rose in this way is something like imagining Jenna Fitch in a rare moment of unpreparedness. Two people always buttoned-up, always on the ready, and rarely caught with their knickers around their ankles. You've sort of drawn an unsettling comparison between the two, which makes you squirm uncomfortably, shifting from your right foot to your left. But luckily, Rose has never been graceless for long periods of time, and recovers almost instantly.

"I apologise for the intrusion."

"It's not a problem," you shrug. "Though Emily's currently, um, indisposed." Something flickers across her face then, and you clear your throat to clarify, "Shower."

"Oh, it's alright, really. I just need something for Lewis. I don't want to bother her."

"Would you like to –" you swing the door open a bit more and hold out your arm in a gesture of invitation.

"Yes, thank you." Rose steps inside and then pauses, hands clasped together near her waist. "I was just wondering if I could have a look for Sophie. Emily forgot to pack her in with Lewis' things yesterday, and he seems to fancy her the most, you know."

"Uh, Sophie?"

Rose smiles kindly, an expression she's worn nearly every time you've seen her over the past year. You're just not sure when it started causing the hair at the base of your neck to stand on end.

"Sophie the giraffe," she answers, regarding you with some sort of warm condescension.

"Oh, right. 'Course, the _giraffe_." Rose's smile remains, you can see it from your periphery, and you can't really stand to look at her full-on, knowing it's still present. Not without hearing everything she's not saying. So you clear your throat again and look off with a wave of your hand down the corridor. "I'll just fetch it for you from the, uh, from the nursery."

You leave her stood there and head off without another word. It's not fair then, that Rose's voice – calmed and even – follows you into Lewis' nursery and echoes around the empty room. All the implications of that smile. All the things you know it says. It bounces off the grey walls, everything she's expressed with one, stupid look that you now hear so clearly, ringing in your ears. It says, _I know things you never will. _It says, _I understand things about Emily and about this child that you can't possibly. _It says, _I've a level of experience to which you won't measure._

Sophie's lying on the changing table where Lewis had been gnawing her head the morning prior during a nappy change. And you snatch her up, glaring momentarily at her large, innocent eyes before realising it's not _Sophie's_ fucking fault that Emily's ex is keen to aggravate your insecurities. That she's done it so effortlessly and without saying a fucking word. You shouldn't let it happen – it shouldn't even be possible, for Rose to manipulate your confidence in this way.

Emily chose _you_. She abandoned everything, crossed continents, risked it all, just to tell you this. Just to prove it was _you_ she wanted. She waited for you to come around, for you to reconsider your stubborn independence. And she then went along with your warped perceptions of cautious rediscovery. It seems so irrelevant now, all those steps you took along the way. Now that you're back. Now that she's a part of your days again. But you needed that caution. You needed that time. You needed to be sure. _Emily_, you think, _was sure from the very start_.

And so you exit the nursery with your chin held a bit higher, your shoulders a bit fuller. 'Awkward moments are only what you make of them' – some piece of shit advice your mum once gave that was utterly _useless_ at thirteen, but sounds incredibly wise almost twenty years later.

You hear Emily's voice before actually seeing her. "Oh, Jesus! _Fuck_."

Emily's grabbed at the sheer, blue drapery of a nearby window as you enter the corridor to see her at one end, completely starkers and near the bedroom, and Rose still stood near the door at the other end, eyebrows raised.

"Oh, um, Rose came round looking for Sophie," you tell Emily, waving the small animal between your thumb and forefinger.

"I can see that," Emily deadpans, creeping back against the wall. "Hello." When you bite your lip to keep from smiling at her, Emily glares harder.

Rose's answering 'Hello' is muffled by your amusement. You and Emily caught in some stand-off of duelling expressions – her shooting daggers and you trying not to double-over in laughter.

"Yes, I'm sorry again for the intrusion," Rose interrupts, and the moment is temporarily broken.

You look back towards Rose, who's at least had the decency to avert her eyes, and then take three or four steps towards Emily. Emily, who's still scowling. Emily, who's still flush against the wall and looking like she wishes the floor could swallow her up. Once you're stood directly in front of her, still smirking heavily, you pull at the drapery to which she's clutching until she reluctantly lets it fall. You then guide her backwards, shuffling towards the bedroom doorway, one hand on her hip. All that exposed skin, still pink from the hot water and perhaps also from embarrassment, remains fully blocked by your stature until she's safely out of Rose's line of vision.

"Why don't you get back in the shower, yeah? I'll just be a minute." You lean in, place a quick kiss to Emily's cheek. And then, lowering your voice, you say near her ear, "If you're done showcasing your bits to our houseguest, that is."

Emily's answering _'fuck off'_ is barely above a harsh whisper, and it prickles the hair at the back of your neck in an entirely different way. You watch her walk away, perving happily at her retreating form, before running a hand through your hair and turning away from the bedroom doorway. Rose doesn't make eye contact until you're back at the door and handing over the sodding giraffe.

"Like I said," you tell her, "it's not a problem."

Her smile says something else now – subdued in what looks like concession. It shouldn't feel like a victory, like you've won a bloody pissing contest with Emily as the prize. But it's hard not to feel that way when Rose can only nod in response, uttering a quiet _'thank you'_ before leaving the flat. It's hard to convince yourself it's not about winning as you strip out of your tee shirt and shorts and knickers, finding Emily already laughing, head tilted back, as you step under the shower spray. Kissing her sloppily, feeling her breasts press into you, naked and wet, feels like you've won it all.

Later that evening, she's back to apologising. For Rose's presence. For Lewis. Even for Sophie, for chrissake, who's hardly culpable. You've just made love, on your way out of the shower while in the middle of towelling dry, and the sheets are now damp, the pillows soaked through from your wet hair. If you weren't so relaxed, your body entirely limp from orgasm, you'd be more likely to engage. Because Emily's line of reasoning is flawed, and there are things you're meant to tell her about this new arrangement. And though you've every intention of combating her constant string of apologies, you can't muster more than a quiet humming in response.

Emily's laid on her side, watching you lie on your back but not touching, because it's well hot – the residual steam from your shower not helping – and your skin sticks together wherever there's contact.

"You're well useless after a shag."

Your head lolls to the side, facing her with tired but narrowed eyes. "Manual labour's not typically required after sex, is it?"

"No," Emily laughs lightly. "No, of course not – it's just, I guess I'd forgotten." She presses her palm flat to your stomach, tries to move it up between your breasts but the movement isn't fluid. Her hand sticks along the surface, skin to skin. "It's nice, you know, remembering."

"I'm glad the memory of my incapacitation is a happy one," you say flatly.

She laughs again, moves to kiss you once. Then twice, your lips hardly able to respond properly. When Emily leans back, she brushes wet strands of hair from your face and tells you, "They're all that way for me, you know. Every memory of you, I'm happy to have rediscovered it."

* * *

"You've _got_ to fucking stop this, Emily. _Christ!_"

It starts this way.

Or, well, it starts with another unwarranted apology, and then you're at the tipping point. Everything split out, running out and over. You've never been one to beat around it, always going in head first with fists swinging. It's apparently something that hasn't changed over the years, though Emily seems to have forgotten how to manoeuvre your outbursts. Because her response is too quiet, too much like she's been sucker-punched. And it drains the fight out of you immediately.

"What do you mean? Look, I'm sorry if –"

"No – that's it, Em. _That –_ you're apologising for every fucking thing, and you've got to stop."

"I'm just trying to make things better for you. I know this can't be easy. It's a massive adjustment, and I just – I don't want –" she stops short of finishing, stops just shy of honesty, and shakes her head.

"You don't want what? For me to change my mind? You don't want me to leave all this and go running back to New York?"

Emily looks away, sniffs quietly and presses her lips together.

"Is that it?"

She shrugs heavily, leant up against the kitchen doorway. "I don't know."

A sigh escapes when you collapse onto the sofa, beckoning Emily by patting the space next to you. When she sits, you turn towards her, tucking one leg up under the other.

Your demeanour has softened entirely when you tell her, "It can't work like this, Ems. It honestly _won't_ work like this."

"Like what?"

You toss your arms into the air, let them fall with a flop against the sofa cushions. "With you running around unnecessarily putting out fires, pretending that you and I can live in a world outside of the one that already exists – the one that includes run-ins with Rose and daily routines with Lewis. Whether he's bloody happy or not." Emily bites her lip, looks down to her hands in her lap. "Look, I didn't decide to come back under the delusion it'd be all sunshine and rainbows, alright? We're going to fuck things up, _a lot_." Emily looks back up, worry still creasing her features, but you keep on. "I'm going to piss you off by leaving my hair in the drain, which will get disgusting and clogged. And you're going to leave the cap off the toothpaste, like, fucking _regularly_, and I'll obviously want to throttle you because of it." She smiles then, still biting at her upper lip, but relaxing minutely. "Thing is, Em, I can't have you refusing to call me out on my shit or shrinking back into yourself when the way we argue is half the reason we work so well to begin with."

Emily laughs, tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. "Sort of an unique art form, isn't it?"

"Too right," you say, returning her smile. "You can't try and have a life with me, apart from the one you already have with Lewis and Rose. I don't want that. It's like – it's like I'm only getting a portion of you or something." Emily nods, turns where she's sat to face you more fully. "And refusing to confront this new dynamic for fear that I'll leave is just – well, it's really, fucking stupid." Your voice softens then while you keep your eyes locked with hers. "Because I'm not going anywhere, alright? Definitely not of my own volition and not even if you're pushing me out."

"I wouldn't _ever_ –" she interjects, her face almost panicked in sincerity.

"I know," you smile, taking her right hand, which she's been worrying with her left. "I wouldn't let you."

You have a lot of sex that night. Just after Lewis goes down for the night, Emily comes back from the nursery to find you cooking supper and starts to place kisses between your shoulder blades. You burn the rice and overcook the vegetables until they're indecipherable mush.

But Emily says, breathless and pressing into you, "Fuck it, we'll order takeaway." And pushes her hand between your legs.

Later, after pizza and a few beers, she's on you again – fingers wandering, mouth insistent. You think of her being bound by shackles, made immovable by a fear of losing you, and how she's now shattered the irons – freed maybe by your reassurance. She seems lighter anyway. The quickness of her movements, like she's relearning to flex her muscles without restriction – a tension and release against your own. Because Emily is everywhere all at once, impossible to track with sensations firing synapses in parallel. You're fairly helpless once she's finished, much as you've always been. And Emily just crawls along your body, kissing various patches of skin as if afraid she's left any inch untouched. Exhaustion overtakes you eventually, Emily having curled into your side and breathing steadily onto your chest.

* * *

Morning comes with sounds that aren't yet familiar, still jarring in that they are, for long seconds while your brain clears of sleep, unrecognisable. A baby monitor sits on Emily's bedside table, Lewis' squawking from its speaker breaking through the quiet of the room, and your eyes blink at the sound. Emily's moved to her own side of the bed, her back to you while she sleeps. Your hand reaches out to run your fingers down its length, but she doesn't stir at the touch nor at the sound of her son chirping happily from the nursery.

"Em." It's barely a whisper and muffled slightly into your pillow. He keeps at it, Lewis does, stringing together jumbled baby noises that you can't quite believe Emily can sleep through at this point. So you perch on an elbow, peering over her shoulder and say again, "Em." From this angle you can now not only hear Lewis but see him as well, a grainy and blurred kind of video – like wearing night-vision goggles – on the small monitor screen. You kiss Emily's upper arm and then her shoulder cap, but she only shifts, burying her face further into the pillow.

It seemed like a good idea from the comfort of Emily's bed, but stood now where you are – squinting into the semi-dark of the nursery – you begin second-guessing the brilliance of this decision. Lewis has learnt to pull himself onto any ledge within reach: low tables, chairs, the sofa. He's done so upon waking, and you can just barely see his eyes peering over the rail of the cot where he's got both hands clutched, gumming the wood. You move slowly, and Lewis eyes your approach in what appears to be a cautious manner.

"So," you say, and standing over him is a bit more overwhelming than you'd anticipated. "You'd like to get out of there then?"

He considers you for another minute, staring upwards with his mouth agape and his chin glossed over in drool. So you take another step forward, placing a hand on the cot rail. And Lewis smiles, reaching out one hand until a cluster of soggy fingers touches your thumb.

"Right." You clear your throat, reach over the edge, and pull him out.

It's the first you've held him since Lewis was very small, not more than six weeks, on that day when you first allowed yourself to imagine all this. When you and Emily started to give way to more than you should, and you caught glimpses of some life you were maybe always meant to have. You suspect it will be incredibly awkward, holding him after so much time and without Emily's supervision. And it might have been, had Lewis not grabbed onto you so easily, wrapping one arm around your shoulder and clutching to the thin cotton of your sleep shirt. In the end, it's all very unceremonious, and you almost sigh in relief.

In the kitchen, after a _mostly_ successful nappy change, you find you're a bit less lost than you should be; as it seems you've been paying more attention to Emily's daily routine than you'd thought. Emily keeps Lewis' dried breakfast cereals on a low shelf in the cupboard, and as you reach for one of the boxes, an instruction on food preparation runs absently through your head. You reach for the bowl and spoon next, both brightly coloured and made of plastic. Lewis has quieted, still holding loosely to your shirt, but watching intently without making a sound, as you move about the kitchen. It's only after you've begun heating the water that you realise you're apparently capable of functioning one-handed. When you've placed him in the highchair, Lewis rediscovers his voice, screeching unhappily as the tray snaps into place.

"Look here," you tell him, his face starting to break miserably while you fasten the strap around his middle. "Your mum's apparently neglecting your well-being this morning, so you're stuck with me, alright? And, I can appreciate your distaste for this sort of confinement," you comment, struggling to snap the straps together between Lewis' legs as he squirms, "but I don't make the rules. Anyway, the quicker _you're_ fed, the quicker _I_ get caffeine. Then we're both sorted, yeah?"

Lewis whimpers, a bottom lip protruding as he looks up to you with watery eyes until you've dumped a handful of dry cereal puffs onto his tray, which he then works to snatch up between his fingers. They mostly stick to his tiny hands in odd places, though he manages to get one or two puffs into his mouth despite not being especially dexterous. With coffee brewing, filling up the small kitchen with an aroma that waters at the back of your throat, you sit facing Lewis with a bowl of oats porridge and attempt the first spoonful. He opens his mouth dutifully, like a baby bird, and you place the spoon near his tongue until Lewis closes his mouth, and then slide the spoon out. Easy enough, that.

"Fucking child's play," you mumble, grinning smugly and preparing a second spoonful.

He takes it, though less enthusiastically. By the third attempt he's clamped his mouth tightly, scowling at the spoon hovering in front of him. When Lewis is momentarily distracted by a cereal puff stuck to his elbow, you pour a cup of coffee before resituating in front of him with renewed determination.

"Come on now, Lewis." You spin the contents around the bowl, eying it carefully. "You're meant to have at least 55 grams of this shite, so says your mum – can't be all bad." You bring the spoon near his mouth again, but he turns his head from side to side, avoiding your offering. "Look, it's delicious – see?" Bringing the bowl closer to your face, you turn your nose up a bit at the smell, but Lewis is watching intently so you quickly turn your frown upwards, smiling widely. "Mmm, looks _very_ tasty. Shall I just have a bite then?"

Tentatively, you then bring the spoon to your mouth, and Lewis' eyes are rapt, his tiny mouth opening slightly just as you do the same. You take the spoonful – a small one, meant for babies – and almost immediately lurch for the sink. "Oh, _Christ_, that's fucking _awful_." Lewis laughs, claps his hands together while you try to rid the foul taste from your mouth with a long sip of coffee. "I'm sorry, mate. I just – I can't do that to you." The bowl and the spoon and the horrible paste posing as oat porridge go into the sink with a solid _thud_. "Maybe just a bottle then, what do you say?"

Lewis bangs his palms against the bright green tray of his highchair and echoes, "Ba-ba-ba-ba."

Grabbing a bottle from the fridge, you shake it a few times, examining its contents. "Right, can't cock this up can we?" you say through a sigh, looking once toward the bedroom for any sign of Emily. Though it appears she's shagged herself into a state of comatose.

Not much later, you've brought Lewis to the sofa where he's suckling happily on a bottle while you leaf through an art magazine. You're trying to read about some of London's 'artists to watch' that will be showcased at various galleries in the coming year. Lewis had been content to calmly sit with you, cornered snugly into the notch of your elbow and shoulder. But he leans forward as you flip the page to touch its glossy photographs.

"A fan of Robert Currie, are you?"

Lewis' hand slides down the page, his tiny fingers squeaking along the surface, and he looks up to you at the sound.

"Right. A bit abstract for my tastes, too."

He holds his bottle with one hand, milk gathering in the corners of his mouth and eyes wide. He then smacks the page and seems to enjoy the sound of that as well. As you turn the page, the process repeats. You laugh a bit at the way he seems pleased by simple sounds, the surprise of his own creations registering in the blinks of his eyes.

This is how she finds you.

"Hi."

"Oh, how nice of you to join us," you're saying blithely as Emily leans in to first kiss the top of Lewis' head then curls onto the arm of the sofa beside you. Lewis spins in your arms, reaching for Emily as she touches his face before settling back down to your lap.

"I've been up, for a bit," she croaks, pushing unruly strands of hair from her face. "Reading mostly."

"Thought you'd have yourself a lazy morning then?"

Emily smiles down on you, places a very chaste kiss on your mouth before saying, "Well, I was trying to keep myself from putting out any fires _unnecessarily_, if you must know."

"Ah, so you trust me to not set your son on fire – that's well comforting."

"You're awfully stroppy this morning," Emily laughs, pushing off her perch and heading towards the kitchen. "Someone not get enough coffee?"

"As a general rule, I've _never_ had enough caffeine, but in particular at nine in the morning."

"I'll keep that in mind," Emily says over her shoulder. She stops at the sink before turning back to you. "What's all this? Not in a mood for porridge, was he?"

Your head shakes at the mention of it, and you make a sound of disgust. "Em, that stuff shouldn't be consumed by the human population at large, let alone small children."

She rolls her eyes. "It's not that bad!"

"Have you even tried it? It's _horrible! _Completely inedible, I assure you."

Emily just laughs and moves towards the cupboard. "I'll fix him something else. He's got to have more than a bottle, you know."

"I don't know – seems pretty content to me," you argue, looking down to Lewis who's gone from drinking the contents of his bottle to just chewing the rubber tip, more consumed now with the game he's started. "A little dairy cocktail, some fine reading and mild discussion on our preferences of curated modern art – not a bad morning eh, Lewis?"

"It's lovely." She's stopped moving about the kitchen, you realise, when you look up to see her leant against the table watching you. "It sounds lovely," she says, correcting the sentiment with a shy smile that tickles the pit of your stomach.

* * *

Rose attends a week-long conference in Birmingham and, as a result, Lewis stays on with you and Emily for close to a fortnight. It happens mostly by accident, your new ritual, but on the fourth morning that Emily finds you on the sofa with Lewis, she makes a suggestion.

"It's actually the best time for me to write," she says. And then [although she's gotten better about it] she can't help but append, "If you don't mind getting up with him?"

The pattern is sort of relaxing – a solid two hours every morning where you can focus on something other than your unemployment. Emily stays tucked away in the bedroom, reading or writing. And Lewis is sort of amusing, his face often contorting like some kind of cartoon character as he tries to form words. The two of you manage to avoid any further disastrous run-ins with breakfast, and usually end up crawling around the sitting room carpets. Sometimes he wants books. Sometimes he can't be kept still. Always he laughs. And it's a rather lovely sound that fills up the flat.

The morning after he's gone back to Rose, you're sat with Emily midmorning at the kitchen table, working separately and silently. She's revising, ploughing through her dissertation's final draft. You're wrapping up some freelance work, but have glazed over in thought, staring blankly at the cupboards.

Emily's foot nudges your knee from beneath the table, and when you find her eyes, the smile she's wearing is reflected in them.

"What're you thinking about over there?"

"Huh? Nothing – it's nothing." You look back to your computer, click around aimlessly.

"You look sort of, I don't know, sullen or something."

"What? No, I'm not." You chance a look at Emily, who merely arches an eyebrow. "I'm not _sullen_. It's just, you know, it's quiet."

"Yeah," Emily grins, pressing her lips together as she watches you, and then sips her tea. "Yeah, it is."

"Well, we should get out for the day – see the sights."

She laughs a bit. "See the sights?"

"Yeah, let's take a walk or pop over to Borough Market and eat until we fall over."

You reach your hand across the table, which Emily takes with a sigh. "I thought you had work to finish."

"Fuck it – I'll finish tonight with a glass of wine when I'm more relaxed. I can't focus on shite right now." You tug a bit at your joined hands, but it's an unnecessary prompt since Emily's already up and moving towards you. When she settles on your lap, her head rests on your shoulder.

"I love you, you know." Emily speaks into your neck as your arms wrap around her.

"Because I'm attempting to ply you with sweets?"

Her laughter is felt in short puffs of air against your skin. "Because you're a sentimental sop even when you're too stubborn to admit it."

"Yeah, well, I love you too," you sigh, as if almost resigned.

Emily's head pops up so you can see her face. "Because I'm so cute?"

You laugh, kiss the inside of both arms, near her elbows where they're wrapped loosely around your neck. "That, _and_ because even when you're insulting me, I can't help but swoon like a sodding imbecile."

She leans forward, laughing lightly, and kisses you. Her hands thread through your hair and settle on your face just as she pulls away, resting her forehead on your own. "Well, you're _my_ sodding imbecile, and I wouldn't trade you for all the tea in China."

Your lips find hers again, so close it takes hardly any movement at all. "No?" Emily shakes her head and kisses you again. "How about for all the cake in Borough Market?" you ask. She pinches her lips together and closes one eye in serious consideration. "Oh my _god!_"

"What?" Emily laughs, her eyes now wide. "It's good cake!"

"You're fucking unbelievable."

Her grin turns almost devilish, an arch shaping her eyebrow that makes you want to shift in your seat. "What've you got that's better than cake?"

It's the last coherent thing said between you. For hours.

* * *

In a park, on the first, real autumnal day in London – air chilled to a crisp, everyone in jumpers and hats – Emily's laid out on a blanket, her head in your lap. Lewis fell asleep on the walk, wrapped up in blankets and snuggled in his pushchair. You're leant back, resting your weight on your hands while Emily reads. The sounds circulating around you are calming, reminiscent of a different time and a familiar place now far-removed. If you close your eyes, it could be Brooklyn. It could be Prospect Park on a chilly Saturday where the hipsters turn out in droves, clinging to the last rays of summer sun. That life essentially ended where you left it, stopped pumping like a heartbeat. Being here with Emily, it's as if she cracked open your chest, resuscitated that heart and gave it new life. You can't imagine _not_ being with her, but it's almost equally hard to grasp the concept that you are. How it is you're here. How it is she asked you back. How it is you gave in. How it is you lost her at all.

Emily shifts, her head moving against your lap until she's looking up at you, squinting at the sun overhead. "Hi."

"Hey." Your voice wavers unexpectedly, and you clear your throat.

"You alright?" Emily sits up, tossing her book onto the blanket and worrying her hair.

Your fingers reach out to touch its red curls. "Yeah, fine."

Emily smiles, snuggles in closer when a breeze picks up. She sits facing you, her legs bent at the knees and arm resting on your thighs. "Don't feel like talking about it then?"

"Do you ever think about how we – well, how it is we've ended up here? Together, I mean."

"Only every day."

"Yeah, me too."

Emily shudders, and you wrap an arm around her legs where they rest against your side. Set your chin on her knee as she asks, "Anything in particular?"

"I guess I just wonder what would have happened – if you'd ever have left Rose, had she not," you pause, bite at your lip and look down to Emily's hand where her thumb fans out along your jeans. "Things sort of fell apart when she did that, but had that never happened – I don't know, I just wonder."

Emily sighs. Her voice quiet but firm. "Naomi, I betrayed what I had with Rose the second you walked into that coffee shop – the absolute _instant_ I saw you again, I knew."

"You knew what?" you ask, not looking up until Emily raises her hand and with two fingers lifts your chin.

Your glad she has done when you find her eyes, like warm molasses or melted chocolate, and it sends a warmth that spreads to your fingers and toes. "I knew that no matter what, I wouldn't be able to let you walk away again."

Your smile returns, and Emily lets her hand fall from your face so you can take it, threading your fingers with hers.

She continues, looking down at your joined hands. "And that was a horrible position to be in – feeling this kind of impending betrayal, and knowing I wouldn't do anything to stop it. I felt like a terrible person, you know?" You nod, your smile slipping, and Emily sighs. "But then I never did feel exactly like myself with her. It's like becoming this version of yourself that isn't totally unrecognisable, but isn't really a true representation either. And it was like that with her, from the very start. I didn't become a person I didn't favour or anything. I just became someone I didn't really know. By the time we were living together, planning a family, I guess I'd grown accustomed to it. Figured it was just some new, adult version of me, you know?"

You nod, sadly. "And did you ever stop feeling guilt over it?"

She smiles, squeezes your fingers. "Obviously." She says it with a lilt that flutters behind your chest walls, and you're tempted to snog her right then and there for all of Hampstead Heath to enjoy.

Instead, you take a deep breath and ask, "How?"

Emily shrugs, runs a hand through her hair, which has blown across her face in the breeze. "At some point I just realised it was pointless. I've never felt more right about any one person in my entire life. And if we were guilty of anything, it was just me being me and you being _you_."

"That simple, ey?"

"It's not though," she says, her face suddenly grave. "For a long time, I thought it was. You and me, together 'til the end: simple. When I acted out on some foolish ideology of family, it was based, in part, on the notion that it didn't matter. You were you and I was me, and that was it, you know? We could bash each other about, cut each other loose, and it wouldn't matter. Because we'd figure it out and find our way back. But, that's not the way things work, is it?" It's now Emily who bows her head.

"It sort of is, though, isn't it? I mean, look at us, Ems."

"But, I lost you for so long, Naomi."

"You got me back." A waver you expect now tremors your voice. And Emily looks up, her own eyes glistening.

"I try not to question it because it doesn't matter _how_ I got a second chance at all this, just that I did. But, I'll never understand how it's possible. How it is that you found me in a random shop, in the middle of this massive city, after all that time."

You shrug, sniffling a bit as tears prick the corners of your eyes. "It was sort of like finding you the first time – big, brown eyes, studiously folded hands atop your desk, that ridiculous fringe that you'd keep for years." Emily laughs through her tears, scoots closer to lay her head on your chest and wraps her arms tightly around your middle. "I just walked in," you say, pulling her in tightly, "and there you were."

* * *

**Post script:** Well, that, as they say, is that. So now here's your chance. If you've not yet dropped in to say a word, please do! I'd love to hear it, no matter the context. Just ask any of the lovely reviewers who often comment on content that doesn't even exist within this story [fookyeahskins, this means you], I am always pleased to hear any of it.

First a bit of housecleaning. I should have mentioned earlier, but I'm terribly unconventional so you get this at the end instead of the beginning. This story is _mostly_ canon. In that, it follows the episodes that had aired when I started writing it. [We won't even talk about what happened in July] Though, there are elements of series 4 I chose NOT to follow as canon in regards to ROYL. Those being: Freddie's death; Sophia/Naomi cheating; Effy's mental collapse. Hope that helps.

The last thing I want to say is that, although there WILL be an epilogue [already in the works, already excited over it], that's going to wrap things up for me for a bit. The wife and I, you see, we're embarking on some rather massive life changes, and I don't know that I'll have the time to devote to these lovely characters that I once did. I'm not saying I'll not ever write for them again, but as of now, no new stories on the horizon, mates. It feels good, going out on a story like this one. I hope you'll agree. Or, at the very least, that you'll not be terribly angry with me for bowing out.

Enjoy your weekends. See you at the epilogue! Cheers, script xx


End file.
